


A heart's mark

by ljummen (Vendelin)



Category: Men's Hockey RPF
Genre: (it's the bad guy), 2017 Stanley Cup Playoffs, Alternate Universe - Not Hockey Player(s), Concussions, Hockey Player Sidney Crosby, M/M, Marriage of Convenience, Minor Character Death, Witch Evgeni Malkin, Witchcraft
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-31
Updated: 2018-10-31
Packaged: 2019-08-07 02:21:54
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 35,987
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16399553
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Vendelin/pseuds/ljummen
Summary: When Sid goes down during the game against Capitals he knows the verdict long before the doctors tell him. With the rest of his career at stake, as well as the potential of a healthy life after retirement, he’s running out of options. When Sergei Gonchar reaches out with a questionable offer, Sid has a difficult time refusing.





	A heart's mark

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Why_so_drama](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Why_so_drama/gifts).



> This fic is something I've never written before, and I hope I managed to pull it off. 
> 
> To my recipient: I hope you enjoy this story, I tried to work in as much of what you like as I could.

Sid knows this place; the fog, the confusion, the dizziness and ringing in his ears. He knows.

For the media, he keeps a brave face. While he doesn’t have to handle the reporters, the cameras don’t stop existing when he leaves PPG Paints Arena and the last thing he wants is another shot of him woozy and unbalanced.

By now, he knows the concussion protocol well and his own symptoms are familiar enough for him to diagnose himself. It’s positive. He’s concussed and it’s a lot worse than the minor one he got at the beginning of the season.

“This might be a good time to consider retirement,” Doctor Wennman says and his blue eyes are apologetic, even though his tone is confident. “There is no way of telling how much damage a brain can take. There’s no quota to fill. If you recover from this, and I want to stress the _if_ , I can’t tell you if you can take one more hit or five.”

Sid stares at the lapels of his doctor’s coat, but his brain is lagging behind, and frustration erupts in his chest. He can’t quite tell if it’s because of the news, or because his brain can’t decode how to respond.

*

After driving Sid home, Mario sits down at the kitchen table. He doesn’t smile.

“I’ll get better,” Sid says, but the doubt seeps into his voice. “I’ll be back before playoffs end.”

Heaving a sigh, Mario rests his arms on the table. “Sid.”

“I’ll be fine. It’s not that bad.”

“It’s a concussion. It’s always that bad.” Mario’s gaze softens then. “Take some time to think about it. I know an injury isn’t the way you want to go out—from experience—but you have an entire life ahead of you. I know you love hockey, but I also know it’s not the only thing you love or want in life.”

And he’s right about that.

Later, in bed, with the blinds drawn and the lights turned down low, he mulls it over.

While hockey has been a major part of his life for almost the entirety of it, he wants more than that; a family, kids, his own traditions and sleep deprivation from cranky toddlers who refuse to sleep. A husband who doesn’t mind that even Monopoly is serious business to Sid’s competitiveness.

His previous relationship ended just before the season started, and while Sid very much enjoys being in one, he has never been bothered by _not_ being in one, until now. With hockey, he always knew he’d have more time for that sort of thing later and he’s always figured that he’d retire when he already had a family, or with a kid on the way. But now, if he can’t go back to playing, he’ll have to build on an empty base.

He’s only thirty. The idea of giving up hockey already is painful. Another five or ten years, that’s what he’s been aiming for. Now, the rug has been snagged from under his feet.

*

It doesn’t get better and it doesn’t get better, and he misses games.

So, when his phone rings and it’s Sergei Gonchar, Sid doesn’t hesitate for long before accepting the call, despite declining most of them lately.

“Mario says that you are not doing better,” Gonch says by way of greeting.

Sid’s knee-jerk reaction is to deny, but instead he sighs, chest heavy and his head aching. “I guess that’s right. I need a miracle unless I want to retire.”

“A miracle,” Gonch says slowly, as though this isn’t just a figure of speech. “Like what?”

Resisting the urge to roll his eyes, because that always makes his head worse, Sid goes for being snippy instead. “I don’t know. Something that can miraculously make my concussion go away without a trace, and put me back on the ice before the next round.”

“What would you be willing to pay for that?”

It’s an odd question, but Gonch is an odd person.

“Anything,” Sid replies.

“I’ll get back to you.”

Then, the line goes dead.

*

He doesn’t have much time for confusion, because Gonch calls him back the following morning. It’s too early, not even six a.m., but Sid hasn’t been able to sleep so it doesn’t matter.

“I have someone who can help you,” Gonch says without apologizing for the early hour. “It won’t come for free. I’m picking you up in half an hour.”

Once again, the line goes dead before Sid can reply. He tries calling back, because he’s nauseous and cranky, and definitely not up for meeting one of Gonch’s friends who’ll just tell him what the doctors already have: rest, rest and rest. But no luck.

Sid is in his t-shirt and gym shorts when Gonch pulls up his driveway and he opens the front door, wearing a cap low over his eyes to shield from the sun. When Gonch rolls down the window on the passenger side, Sid says:

“I’m not coming.”

“Why not?”

“I already know what the doctors say.”

“He’s not a doctor.”

“So he’s got even less to say than them.”

Gonch is quiet for a while, staring at Sid with a thoughtful expression. “I think you should come with me, and see for yourself.”

Hope unfurls in his chest, small but bright, and Sid pushes it down the best he can. “I’m feeling sick.”

Gonch holds up a small stack of something very familiar. “I brought paper bags. I stole them off the plane last night for you.”

Despite feeling like shit and having his world slowly tilting, which has nothing to do with his concussion, Sid smiles. “Alright. Can I go like this?”

It’s some kind of success. Sid has his eyes closed the entire ride, but he only throws up once. Gonch hands him a water bottle as soon as they’re back in the car afterwards and it’s bearable.

“I don’t have your concussion history, but I know it’s a hopeless shithole,” Gonch murmurs and Sid can hear the ticking noise of the indicator for a moment before they turn left somewhere. “I wouldn’t put you through this if I didn’t think it could actually help.”

“Are you going to tell me what it is?”

“I have a friend. His family is close to my family, and Evgeni moved here a few years back. Since then, I’ve been looking after him a little.” There’s a pause and Sid can feel them stopping, maybe at a red light or a stop sign, because they keep going straight ahead after a few moments. “He’s not like you and me, and he’s in a bit of trouble. If you’re willing to help him with his situation, I’m confident he can help you with yours.”

“I don’t believe in crystal healing,” Sid says immediately, because during his insufferably long concussion stretch years ago, he tried just about anything.

Gonch snorts. “Neither do I.”

That...doesn’t answer anything, but Sid is already in the car and they’ve been driving for god knows how long. The least he can do is to hear Gonch’s friend, Evgeni, out and stretch his legs before getting back in the car again.

They slow and then there’s the familiar sound of gravel underneath the tires. Sid breathes in, longing for his home in Nova Scotia suddenly, and the only sound is the crunch of them slowly creeping up or maybe down the road they’re on.

Just as he’s about to ask, they slow to a stop, and Gonch says: “Here we are now.”

Sid cracks his eyes open a fraction, letting them adjust to the light and his head prepare for new impressions, before he opens them further. They’re outside a small house in grey stone, surrounded by trees so compact that Sid thinks of them as a wall.

One of the windows glows with a warm, yellow light and there’s a chubby, grey-speckled cat sitting on the porch railing, watching them. Everything here is so quiet, as though the forest around them is so thick not even sound can penetrate it. When Gonch opens his door for him, Sid steps out without commenting on it and just as he’s about to ask what they’re doing here, the door creaks open.

Goosebumps spread up his arms and then down his back like wildfire, and he can’t decide if he should stare back at the cat, as it’s staring at him, or if he should keep an eye on the door.

“Don’t panic,” Gonch tells him and despite there being absolutely nothing to panic about, Sid can sense his body getting ready to do just that.

“What’s going on here?”

“You’ll figure it out soon enough.”

Sid is just about to ask again when someone steps out through the open door. A part of him expected an old lady with a hunched back and too-large nose. Well, the last part is true, but that’s the only thing that is.

In the doorway stands a tall guy, wearing jeans and a threadbare t-shirt. His brown hair is rumpled and there are lines on his face from what could be his pillow or sheets. He’s barefoot, and even though his eyes are sleepy by their shape and the heaviness to the lids, his gaze is sharp when he takes in Sid and Gonch.

He barks something to Gonch in a language that Sid doesn’t understand, but it sounds a lot like Gonch when he’s speaking to his family on the phone. Probably Russian, then.

“This is my friend Sidney,” Gonch says with a lazy gesture in Sid’s direction. “But of course, you already knew that.”

“I tell you not to come,” the guy on the porch says and Sid would’ve gotten back in the car just from the tone of his voice, if Gonch hadn’t already locked it behind them.

“This is Evgeni, but you can call him Geno,” Gonch says to Sid, as though Geno didn’t uninvite them both a second ago.

“Hi.” Sid stuffs his hands in his pockets. “Nice to meet you.”

Geno glares at Gonch for a long moment, before he picks up the cat from the porch railing and steps down on the grass, walking towards them.

And it’s then, as Sid watches him walking barefoot across the morning damp grass with a cat in his arms, that Sid’s brain can connect the eerie feeling down his spine from when he got here, to the man in front of him.

 _A witch_.

“Yes,” Geno says and his expression is somewhere between humoured and annoyed. The latter seems more directed towards Gonch.

“You can read minds?” Sid asks, before he can think better of it. Both Geno and Gonch laugh at that.

“No,” Geno says.

“Then how did you know?”

“Your expression.”

Sid’s face heats. “Oh. Sorry.”

Gonch turns to Geno. “You’ll have to invite us. Sid needs to sit down.”

Even a polite protest would be fruitless, because Sid’s head is spinning. If he didn’t have a concussion, the idea of witches wouldn’t even have crossed his mind. But right now, it’s as though his body is biologically programmed to know something his brain doesn’t. It’s what he would imagine prey experiences with a predator in close proximity.

“Fine,” Geno mutters and steps to the side to give them a clear path to the house.

Stepping inside, it’s nothing what Sid would imagine a witch’s hut to look like. It’s...a house. Decidedly smaller than his own, but then again, so are most houses. The floorboards creak under his weight, and the hallway consists of nothing but a coat rack in a corner, and a dresser against a wall, with an old-looking mirror above it.

The kitchen is small, with overcrowded shelves and counters, as well a rickety kitchen table with a glass jar filled with tiny, yellow flowers and slightly bigger, blue ones. The carver chairs look uncomfortable, but when Geno motions at them, Sid sits down anyway. Hopefully they can take his weight for however long they’re staying.

Geno’s home is a mix of smells Sid can’t place or even tell apart. It’s warm, somehow, and welcoming despite Geno’s sour expression.

“I assume you want tea,” Geno says and flips the switch on the electric kettle on the counter.

Sid expected something less modern. Does this count as cheating?

“Is faster,” Geno says then, as though he once again knows exactly what Sid has been thinking. “Cooking on stove make no difference.”

“Give him something to help his head,” Gonch interjects, effectively stopping Sid from asking all of his questions.

Geno gives him a flat look, clearly offended by the indication that he wouldn't. “Of course.”

“No drugs,” Sid blurts and immediately regrets it when both Geno and Gonch laugh.

“ _No drugs_ ,” Geno mimics. “You think I’m doctor?”

“It’s just...I need to be able to play.”

Geno shrugs. “Not able to play now.”

Flinching, Sid looks away and his gaze sticks to the grey-speckled cat who’s now perching on the window sill between two overgrown plants in clay pots, staring him down with its green eyes. If only Geno was wrong about that. A moment later, a green, ceramic mug is pushed across the uneven surface of the table, and Geno sits down in the only empty chair, opposite of Sid.

“Sorry.”

When Sid drags his gaze away from the cat, Geno is frowning, his face a little obscured by the hot steam from the tea, until it clears a second later. Just like that. He has an odd set of features, where they don’t quite match but somehow add up to something appealing.

“You’re right.” Sid traces the ear of the mug with his fingertip. The tea is dark, but smells almost sweet. “I can’t play.”

He leaves the _maybe ever again_ out of it, but the tone of his voice probably indicates as much.

“That’s why we’re here,” Gonch says, sipping on his own drink. His is in a glass and looks decidedly paler and clearer than whatever is in Sid’s mug.

“I say no,” Geno states, his tone clipped.

They’ve had this conversation before. While Sid had already decided that he wouldn’t accept any help from Gonch’s friend the moment he stepped out of the car, it feels like rejection now, and the burning hope in his chest flickers.

“And you know that’s bullshit,” Gonch sighs. “You both need help and you’re both capable of helping each other out. You can help Sid with his concussion, and he can help you with your...situation.”

“Situation?” Sid asks.

Geno waves him off. “Is nothing.”

“Do you know how witches become witches?” Gonch turns to Sid and ignores Geno’s death glare with an impressive calm.

“Is not his business.”

“It will be.”

Sid clears his throat. “I don’t know—uh, how witches become witches.”

“They make a deal.” Gonch sips his drink. “With the devil.”

“Is not the devil,” Geno snorts.

Gonch rolls his eyes. “He’s close enough, isn’t he? Anyway, they make a deal.”

“And?”

“Let’s just say that Geno is in a bit of a pickle and you could, perhaps, see it as an issue of being allowed to stay in the country.” Gonch is clearly excluding a lot of details, but Sid isn’t sure he wants to know. “You could make sure Geno gets to stay.”

Sid looks over at Geno, who’s sitting there, fuming. “How much money do you need?”

“No money,” Geno says, with a roll of his eyes. “Is never about money.”

“You’d need to marry him,” Gonch supplies and Sid’s heart screeches to a halt.

“What?”

“Look at it as a green card situation.”

“That’s illegal.”

Gonch sighs. “Well, it still happens, right? You could tell your family and the team that you’re helping Geno stay. Going back would be a bad idea for someone like him anyway, for multiple reasons. To the public you could just say that your concussion made you rethink things, and getting married was the right decision.”

A marriage has always been something he’s imagined for himself, but it’s always been one based on love and not convenience. But with his head in shambles, maybe this is his only opportunity to get back to anything close to a normal life.

He looks at Geno, who’s making a point of not looking at him. There’s a rigid tension to his back and shoulders, and his jaw is set.

“Is this true?” Sid asks.

“Is what true?”

“That you’d need to get married?”

Geno shrugs. “Yes.”

“And you could help me get better?”

“Yes.”

“Is this what you want?”

“No.”

Sid rephrases the question. “Is this the only solution you see?”

For a long, long moment Geno hesitates and then he sighs. Defeated. “Yes.”

Swallowing, Sid looks around in Geno’s kitchen, and how nothing reminds him of his own home. Would he have to live here? Could they live apart? What about Geno’s cat?

“Think about it,” Gonch says. “Take a day and contact Geno when you’re ready.”

A day? How is he going to come to any sort of conclusion within a day? Glancing at Geno again, who’s now petting his cat, Sid takes a breath and nods. “Okay. Give me your number.”

*

Maybe it’s a placebo, or maybe Geno’s tea really helped, but his head is a little clearer and he’s less nauseous that evening. It doesn’t keep his head from spinning, though.

Gonch is someone Sid has trusted for over a decade and he’s been the only sane person at times, when everything else has been chaotic. He still works for the organization and there’s no reason for him to trick Sid into making bad choices.

It’s no secret to anyone, least of all him, that a concussion might not ever go away. There are players who are permanently damaged by their career, incapable of relationships and even emotions other than anger. The risk of becoming one of them makes him choke up as he tries to swallow his panic. In comparison, a marriage of convenience is a small price to pay.

He calls Taylor for the first time since the accident. She’s called _him_ a few times, but it’s no wonder she knows that something is up now.

“Something wrong?” she says as a way of greeting.

“It’s more or less a permanent state.” Sid stares at the black screen of his TV. How many episodes of Game of Thrones does he have to catch up on when all of this is over? “But I need to talk to you about something.”

“What did you do?”

“I haven’t done anything yet.”

“Yet.”

Sid smiles to himself. “Yet,” he agrees and then proceeds to tell her the modified truth about the plan. Taylor has always been passionate about taking care of others, and she makes a small, wounded sound when Sid explains that Geno can’t go back because of who he is.

“Because he’s attracted to men,” she fills in.

Technically, Sid doesn’t know if that’s the truth. Geno never said anything about his sexuality, and _who he is_ is most likely more of a reference to him being a witch. Or so Sid has assumed. Well, this is an easier truth to sell and he _is_ going to marry Sid.

“So I’m going to do him a favor.”

“You’re marrying him.”

“Yes, that’s the plan.”

She’s quiet for so long that Sid has to check that the call hasn’t disconnected, but then: “I’m proud of you. I never thought you’d do this for someone else. Just get a prenup.”

“I will.”

Geno probably isn’t interested in his money—he must have a thousand ways to make enough to live comfortably that isn’t in any book—but Sid isn’t stupid.

“Are you telling Mom and Dad?”

Sighing, Sid rubs a hand over his face. “I should, shouldn’t I?”

“They’d kill you if they found out through the tabloids.”

Crap. “You’re right.”

That conversation goes less smoothly, but at least his dad doesn’t yell and his mom doesn’t cry.

“Is this some kind of existential crisis?” his dad asks once it’s clear to him that Sid isn’t going to change his mind.

“Maybe.” It is in a way, isn’t it? “I guess I got a bit of perspective. I like to help where I can.”

“You’re an adult. You do what you want.” His dad heaves a sigh. “It doesn’t mean I think it’s a good idea.”

“You don’t have to approve of it.”

“I know. It’s your life and you do what you think is right.”

His mom’s silence is deafening, until she says: “I know you’re trying to do something out of kindness, but think of the risk you’re putting yourself in.”

“I figure the risk for me is way less than for him, no matter what happens.” Sid clears his throat. “It’s...it’s something I can do for someone else. I want to do it.”

She’s quiet again. “We will support you of course. You know we always do.”

He hasn’t counted on anything less, but their worry is legitimate.

After that, he calls both Mario and Jen, telling them the same thing. Mario reacts the same way his parents did, but Jen is clearly frustrated.

“You’re telling us _now_?”

“I only just decided,” Sid says. “And I’m not going to change my mind.”

“I guess this is what I get for making sure you don’t say things you shouldn’t in interviews. Now you’re getting married without warning instead. Jesus Christ.” But she still promises to make a plan with the rest of PR.

Despite facing one of the biggest decisions of his life, Sid sleeps better than he has in a while. Maybe Geno’s tea truly did something good. He makes the call first thing after waking up and Geno picks up immediately, as though he’s known Sid would call.

“I’ll do it,” Sid says. “When?”

“You really think this through?”

“I did. I have. I’ve talked to my family about it and they think it’s a greencard thing, as we planned. Um, we might have to do something a little more convincing for the public, though.”

“More convincing how?”

“Like a wedding ceremony.”

For a moment, all he can hear is Geno’s breath over the phone. “Okay. We plan for wedding, maybe two week.”

Sid’s heart plummets. “That’s a lot of missed games for me.”

“We do wedding in maybe two week. We fix head tonight.” There’s a rustle of something on the other end. “You eat today?”

“No.”

“Good, don’t.”

“I’m not supposed to eat?”

“Is more effective on empty stomach.” There’s banging of kitchen cabinets. “I come after sunset. We not speak until everything over. I tell you when. Quiet is of most importance, okay?”

“Do I have to be quiet from now on?”

“No,” Geno says with laughter in his voice. “Only when I come.”

Sid tries to imagine Geno, his distressed jeans and threadbare t-shirt in his house, and it’s hard. “Are you moving in now?”

“Yes.”

Sid has to fight away the hysterical laughter that threatens to bubble out of him. “What about your cat?”

“I bring, no problem.”

“O-kay.” Sid tries to picture them together, with an ordinary life. Well, as ordinary as it can be with someone like Geno. But he can’t. “Where are you going to sleep? I…”

“We solve everything later. I’m have to prepare. Remember: not eat, quiet until I say you can talk, no clothes.” It sounds like he’s about to end the call, but then he makes a considering noise and adds: “Can feel worse for maybe twelve hours after, but will be significant better after, okay? Have to hold out.”

Geno hangs up then and Sid stares at his phone. _No clothes?_ As in... _nude?_

While Sid is regularly naked around other people, both in the locker room and whenever he’s hooking up, which isn’t as rarely as people like to think, this is different. With hockey, it’s to get changed and nudity is an in-between stage. When it comes to sex, it just makes things easier, more intimate. He’s comfortable with his own body; it’s a tool, a necessity for his work, and he takes good care of it.

But whatever Geno has planned for him doesn’t come with any set of rules that Sid knows of. Other than the: don’t talk, don’t eat.

Pushing that to the side, Sid tries to think of anything he’ll have to prepare for Geno to move in with him. It’s a lot, and he doesn’t have energy for any of it. There’s food in the fridge and he has guest rooms if Geno doesn’t want to share the master bedroom.

Not being allowed to eat turns out to be a huge problem for someone like Sid, who’s used to eating a lot and often. If he wasn’t so nervous, he’d probably be cranky. His head is worse again, but he still manages to take a long shower sometime after six and then wraps himself in a fluffy bathrobe that he never uses.

It’s past eight and the sky is turning into a mosaic of pinks and reds and oranges. He watches from the window, until the last ray disappears and only the stars are left. The same second, the doorbell rings.

 _Quiet_ , he thinks to himself. _Absolute quiet._

His heart is flat against the inside of his ribs as he opens the front door. Geno is less rumpled today and his gaze is just as intense. He presses a palm to Sid’s chest and pushes him slightly backwards, indicating to give him room, and when Sid steps to the side Geno walks past him with several fabric bags.

Sid’s skin is tingling, but not from cold, as he trails after Geno into the kitchen. When Geno pushes him down in one of the bar stools, he obeys and watches as Geno gets a huge pot of water on the stove and starts organizing row after row of herbs and flowers from his fabric bags. Sid can’t identify any of them.

Holding up a finger to indicate that Sid needs to sit here and wait, Geno disappears upstairs with a few stems in his hand. Sid’s entire being itches with the need to follow him, just to keep track of what he’s doing. But Gonch trusts Geno, and if the most suspicious person on the planet can do that, so can Sid.

It takes way too long before Geno is back. The water starts boiling on the stove the same moment he steps back into the kitchen, and Sid doesn’t even know why he’s surprised. Goosebumps spread over his skin again, just like yesterday.

Geno turns down the heat and then takes Sid’s arm. They go upstairs and into Sid’s bathroom where the bathtub is waiting for him, brimming with water. It’s clear, but with a tint of blue. He gets the message when Geno first points at him and then the water. He’s gone by the time Sid’s hands reach the tie to his robe.

Sinking down into the water, it fizzles around him, like a chemical reaction to his being and the color goes from blue to an intriguing orange in minutes.

Sid stares. Should he get out? Is it safe? Is something wrong?

Taking a breath, he reminds himself to trust Geno. Nothing hurts. Rather, the fog in his brain starts to clear up and the strain in his eyes eases somewhat.

Geno comes back as the water merges into an unappealing shade of brown. He has a large bowl in his hand, and a woven piece of fabric on top of it. Reaching out, he offers Sid his hand to help him out of the tub, and Sid is too caught up in the corded muscle on Geno’s forearm to even think of his own nudity. The water sloshes to the sides, but remarkably, seems to stay in the tub, with the exception of what’s running off him when he steps onto the tiled floor.

He watches as Geno spreads whatever dry herb he has in his hand in some kind of pattern in the tub, and the tingle on his skin is back, as though it’s charged with something foreign.

Then, Geno reaches up and covers Sid’s eyes with his hand and applies a quick press of his palm. _Keep them closed_.

Without sight, Sid is suddenly filled to the brim with the smell in the room. It’s something spicy and strong enough to make his nose sting slightly whenever he breathes in. It doesn’t smell bad, but it’s not exactly pleasant either.

He’s grateful for having his eyes closed a moment later, when Geno starts rubbing something onto his skin. It’s hot even to Sid’s freshly bathed skin and sticks like some kind of paste.

Geno’s presence is burning him like a sunray through a magnifying glass, and Sid can feel a pull towards him at the core of his being. Geno covers his entire body with the paste and the scent fills his senses, until the only thing he’s aware of is Geno’s hands on him. It’s almost trancelike, and it’s not until after Geno has already moved on to his thighs, that Sid realizes that Geno hasn’t left a single spot. There’s not enough focus for him to be embarrassed.

Instead he lifts his feet when Geno taps them and feels Geno rub the hot paste to the soles and in between his toes. Last, Geno tips his head back and uses the tips of his fingers to cover his face, and then, finally his hair.

Standing there, breathing, Sid hears the hiss and crackle of something very dry being set on fire, and then a strong, unpleasant smell. Then, Geno helps him back in the tub with a steady arm around his middle and a firm hand guiding his legs over the edge.

The water is cool now, making him shiver as he sinks lower until the water reaches his chin. Geno takes a deep breath then and taps Sid’s mouth, telling him to do the same. Oh, he’s going under. He breathes in and then Geno pinches his nose closed for him, and gently pushes him under the surface with his other hand.

Instead of the usual sound of water in his ears, it’s unnaturally quiet. Then, Geno pulls him above the surface again, and the sudden rush of sound is deafening, even though there’s nothing in particular to hear.

Geno keeps a hand under his head and combs through his hair with water with the other. Then, he touches Sid’s eyes again. _Open_.

Everything is so bright, as though his eyes can see colors they had forgotten how, and the water is bright turquoise now. His body hums, vibrating almost, until he locks eyes with Geno and everything goes still and quiet once more.

“Okay?” Geno asks and he looks tired, but focused.

Nodding, Sid swallows. His throat is so dry.

“We finish,” Geno explains and helps Sid sit up in the tub, before he gets to his feet and offers his hand again. “Let’s get you dry off and in bed. I make something for eat, too, and then you sleep. I look after you, make sure everything okay.”

Sid nods again and his brain is clear and empty in a way it hasn’t been in a long time. Maybe ever.

Geno wipes him down with the fabric cloth Sid saw before. It’s rough on his skin and leaves him a little pink afterwards. He’s trembling by the time Geno wraps him in the robe again, tying it with a secure knot around his middle.

“You can walk?” Geno asks and Sid frowns. Why wouldn’t he be able to walk?

But as soon as he’s finished the thought, he realizes that he’s trembling so violently it must be obvious to Geno, too.

“I think so,” he says.

“I help you.” Geno’s hold around him is strong and Sid leans into him a little more than he first intended as they make the short walk over to his bed. His legs weigh hundreds of pounds each, and his head is throbbing suddenly.

“Is this normal?” Sid asks, as Geno helps him lie down.

“Yes, all normal,” Geno says, without asking for further clarification. “I come back soon with food. Stay awake until I’m back. Is important for you to eat first.”

Sid has to fight for it. As soon as Geno leaves the room, his eyes grow heavy and all he wants is to sleep for an eternity until the pain goes away. Geno was right, this is excruciating and panic flares behind his ribs. What if Geno tricked them all? What if he’s doing the opposite of curing Sid?

“Am I dying?” Sid asks when Geno comes back into the room.

“No.” Geno sits down at the edge of the bed. “Your body is cleanse from concussion and other hurt. Is painful process, you know? Even with help from me. Tomorrow when you wake, it’s better and tomorrow evening you back to normal. In two days, you be back to ten years ago. No old pain from hockey.”

Sid squints at him. “You can do that?”

“Is trade,” Geno explains. “You give me big gift, I give big gift to you. If you give small, I give small.”

“Huh.”

Geno holds up a spoon of something that is somewhere between oatmeal and hummus in texture, but pale green. “This is good for empty stomach, make process go faster. If you can, eat all of it.”

He helps Sid scoot up against the pillows so that he can eat without choking. It’s difficult anyway, because his hands are shaking and the last thing he wants is to eat, but it tastes good and he hasn’t eaten since yesterday. If there’s one thing Sid knows how to do, it’s how to cram food even though he’s not up for eating. Geno holds the glass of water for him, as Sid’s hands tremble too much.

After finishing his meal, Geno puts the bowl and the glass on the nightstand, and tilts Sid’s face upwards, scrutinizing him.

“Everything go well. I know you feel terrible right now, but it will pass just like I say. Please keep in mind if you wake up during night and you feel like dying.” When Sid opens his mouth to ask if he _is_ dying again, Geno pushes his chin up, closing his mouth again. “I tell you before, you not dying. Actually very much opposite of dying, but you have to be patient, okay? It will be rough few hours for you now, but is worth it when everything is over.”

Sid wants to ask more questions, but his head his pounding and his stomach rolling, and he honestly just wants to sleep. “Okay.”

“Sleep now. I’m here if you need anything.”

The last thing he sees is Geno’s grey-speckled cat jumping up on the bed, curling over his feet, as Geno leaves the room.

*

When Sid wakes again, everything is pale grey and his entire being aches as though he’s been bruised from the inside out. Breathing in through his nose, carefully counting the seconds, and then out through his mouth for equally long. The pain doesn’t subside, but the shock of it wears off with every careful breath.

After a while, Sid dares to look around. Geno’s cat is still there, but it has moved further up the bed, lying next to Sid’s hip. It’s watching him, and Sid gets the impression that it hasn’t stopped all night.

On the other side of the bed lies Geno. He’s on top of the covers, fully dressed, but he’s out cold. He looks pale. Maybe last night took a lot out of him too. It should feel weird with a stranger in his bed, but on the contrary, it’s quite comforting. Geno was there, looking after him, just like he promised.

Softness settles over the centre of his chest, calming in all this pain—Geno kept his promise. It only lasts for a second, however, before the urgent press of his bladder forces him out of bed.

It’s the worst he’s felt maybe ever. If things were this bad during his longest stretch of concussions and broken jaws, he must’ve suppressed every memory of it. He’s holding onto the sink for dear life, just to keep himself upright, when there’s a faint knock on the door and Geno steps inside.

Sid is still in the robe, but he’s rapidly alternating between sweating and freezing, and one second he wants to throw it on the floor, and the next dig out flannel pyjamas to put underneath.

“Need help?” Geno asks.

Sid wants to say something, but he’s worried that he’ll throw up if he opens his mouth, so he only nods. Geno is strong and safe against his side, as they walk back to the bed. Maybe it’s his magic radiating calm, or maybe it’s just him, but Sid feels less like he’s coming apart at the seams when Geno puts him back in bed.

“You need something?”

“Water?” Sid says, more as a question.

“Water is good,” Geno agrees and disappears out the door.

When he comes back, he’s carrying two bottles that look laughably small in his large hands. He hands one to Sid and puts the other one down on the bedside table.

Sid sleeps on and off for the better part of the day, but just as Geno promised, he wakes again in the evening, feeling less like he’s dying. His body is sore, as though it’s recovering from an especially hard workout, but his head is okay.

His head is okay.

Looking around, he finds the bedroom empty, but there’s a grey streak disappearing out the open bedroom door, so the cat must’ve been here until now. He takes his time getting out of bed and putting on a pair of sweats and a t-shirt, disposing of the robe in the hamper. He doesn’t want to look at it again in a long time.

There’s a bag sitting on the chair on the other side of the bed. It must be Geno’s. But other than that, there’s no sign of him. Washing his face, Sid scrutinizes himself in the mirror. He looks normal. Nothing about him screams witchery.

The house is quiet, but unusually warm, glowing in the various lights that have been lit. Sid usually leaves them off, unless he’s expecting people over. For a house this big, he uses only a small part of it. But now there’s two of them, living here.

There’s another sign of Geno in the kitchen. Well, five actually. Small clay pots lined up on the kitchen window sill, right above the sink, overflowing with green plants. He doesn’t have any plants himself, being away so much and never really seeing the appeal in them, but this looks nice, he figures. A little like a magazine shot for a kitchen spread.

The next sign of Geno are the two bowls next to the fridge, and the cat sitting next to Sid, watching him with a strange kind of interest.

“I’m sorry,” Sid says to it. “I don’t know what your name is.”

“Fedor,” comes a voice behind him, and Sid jumps, whirling around.

In the doorway to the kitchen stands Geno. He’s wearing his ripped jeans and threadbare t-shirt, holding a small sachet in his palm. It looks like it’s made out of burlap.

“Sorry, not mean for scare you,” Geno says, apologetic.

“It’s okay, I just didn’t expect you.”

Geno hesitates then. “Not okay I stay?”

Shaking his head, Sid tries to calm his still racing heart. “Oh no, that’s perfectly okay. We already agreed. I just didn’t expect you to show up in the doorway right _now_.”

“I still bring in things from car,” Geno explains. “Is okay?”

It’s not like Sid can say much else than: “Of course, make yourself at home.”

He watches as Geno drops the small pouch on the counter and crouches down to scoop up Fedor. Cradling him on his arm, he then straightens and steps up to Sid.

“Fedor, say hi to Sid. We live with him now.”

Fedor eyes Sid for a long moment, before he lets out a soft meow.

Daring a glance at Geno, before he looks down at Fedor, Sid says: “Is he, um, some kind of familiar?”

“No, he’s cat.”

Laughing, Sid shakes his head. “Okay, point taken.”

“How you feel?” Geno asks then, letting Fedor jump down on the floor when he starts struggling.

“I feel like my body has been beaten to death ten times, but it’s a lot better than before.”

Geno cups his face and tilts his head back under the lights, scrutinizing him. “Look better, too. Strong.”

“I figured I should eat something. Are you hungry?” Sid says with Geno still cradling his face.

“Okay, yes.”

He makes them seafood paella and Geno eats like he hasn’t had anything this good in years.

“Do you like it?” Sid asks, perhaps unnecessarily.

“Very good.” Geno nods around his fork. “I’m not eat all day. So hungry.”

“Oh, why not?”

Geno pulls a face. “Not sure if maybe I need to help you more. Sometimes not everything work perfect, you know? And I’m not bring food.”

“I have a fridge full of food,” Sid protests.

“I forget to ask if okay.”

Sid looks him over again. He comes off so self-assured, confident in his own skin. A little angry the first time they met. But maybe this is just as strange for Geno as it is for him.

“You live here now,” he says. “You can do whatever you want.”

Geno is quiet for a moment, considering. “Okay.”

Shit. They still have to get married. “So, we’re going to have to talk about the wedding ceremony.”

“Yes?”

“We’ll have to do a prenup,” Sid says and swallows. “I hope that’s okay with you.”

“What’s prenup?”

Sid wracks his head for an explanation that doesn't make him sound like a douche. “It’s a contract, basically. To protect your assets and mine, if we divorce.”

Geno cocks his head to the side and smiles slightly. “You only one with asset.”

“Is that going to be a problem?”

“No. Is good.” Geno picks out a shrimp from his paella and leans down, letting Fedor take it from his fingers. “If you need it to feel comfortable, then we do.”

“Thank you.” Sid watches him for a moment. “Who do you want here for the ceremony?”

“Sergei,” Geno says immediately. “Okay?”

“Absolutely.” Clearing his throat, Sid takes a sip of water. “No family?”

“No family,” Geno says, voice firm, and there’s no room for questions.

Sid goes to bed just an hour later, already tired again, but when he wakes up Geno is sleeping next to him. Under the covers, but still wearing his t-shirt. The jeans are folded on the same chair as his bag, and Sid stares at the ceiling. His husband to be is lying next to him and he doesn’t even know what Geno’s last name is.

Shit.

For a second he thinks about backing out—he’s already getting better and he hasn’t married Geno yet. Then, he pushes the thought away. Geno fixed his head, and in comparison, marrying him doesn’t seem as a big enough price to pay.

It’s still early. His phone tells him it’s 5:32 a.m. when he grabs it off the bedside table, but Flower has kids, so he might already be awake and Sid has to confess.

 **< I’m getting married** , he sends on a whim. Just as he suspected, his phone lights up with an incoming call the next second and he declines it quickly. **He’s here, still sleeping, I can’t talk on the phone.**

In return he receives a long string of French that he pretends he can’t understand.

**< It’s a friend of Gonch. He’s helping me so I’m helping him. **

**> Am I understanding this correctly? Between the lines?**

**< Probably. **

**> Sid. Think.**

**< I have. He’s helping me with my head. This is the least I can do. **

**> What is he? Some kind of doctor? Physio?**

**< Something like that. **

Glancing over at Geno, who’s still asleep on his stomach, face turned towards Sid, with his mouth slightly open. He could do a lot worse.

**< Do you think I should tell the entire team?**

**> That you’re getting married?**

**< The truth.**

**> Fuck no. Half of them can’t keep quiet after two beers and the media will be all over this as it is. **

**< Then what do I tell them?**

**> Me, Tanger and Pascal will tell them that we’ve known you’ve been seeing Gonch’s friend for a while. Pretend we’ve known for a long time. Mario will play along as well, you have to talk to him.**

Shit, he’d forgotten about Mario in all of this. If there’s anyone the media will call, it’s him. Sometimes they seem to forget that Sid has an actual father who was there during his entire childhood.

**< I will. We can tell them my concussion made me rethink my choices.**

**> I can’t believe you’re doing this. Are you sure they didn’t switch your brain with someone else’s? **

Sid rolls his eyes and his heart clicks when it doesn’t make him want to die.

**< I’ll talk to Mario. You talk to Tanger and Pascal?**

**> Can I at least get a name?**

**< Geno. **

**> I’ll call you before lunch.**

Sid knows he’ll have to pick up, but it’s easier like this, when Flower can’t yell at him and when he can shield himself from questioning his own choices. Gonch said Geno needed his help, and...well, keeping promises is important.

It’s almost eleven when Geno wakes up and comes downstairs, and by then, Sid has already had his dreaded conversation with Flower. It was a lot less horrific than he feared, so maybe texting first and letting Flower call Gonch, and then Tanger, was a better idea than Sid realized.

“Are you hungry?” Sid asks from where he’s been waiting on one of the bar stools by the counter.

Geno blinks at him clearly still half asleep, and then he nods.

“Are eggs okay?”

“Yes, great.” Geno’s accent is a little heavier now and he’s clearly not a morning person, if the way he sinks down on the bar stool Sid abandons is any indication.

“So, I’ve talked to my friends,” Sid begins later, when he’s poured Geno coffee and is cracking eggs in the pan. “About marrying you.”

Sitting up straighter, Geno focuses on him. “Okay?”

“They’ll think it’s a greencard thing, um, my closest friends and family that is. My team will think we’ve been together for a while, at least since my last relationship ended, and that we’ve decided to get married because of my concussion. That I didn’t want to wait. I got perspective on things.”

He’s thought this through, and even the media will eat it up. They seem to think the only thing he cares about is hockey, just because he refuses to talk about anything else with them. Telling them that he’s getting married because the threat of early retirement made him rethink his life choices will make them assume that they were right all along. At least he hopes so.

Geno is quiet for a second, as though he has to take time to process what Sid just said when he’s barely awake, but then he nods. “Works for me. I have to say same thing at work—maybe we date for little bit, but we not tell. You too famous.”

“You work?” Sid asks before he can stop himself. “Um, with colleagues?”

Well, that didn’t make it any better.

Geno gives him one of those smiles that makes Sid feel like he’s entertaining Geno in ways that he didn’t intend.

“Yes, have normal job.”

Nodding and concentrating on the eggs, Sid says: “What is it that you do?”

“I work at plant nursery,” Geno explains. “Sell plants to people, grow plants too.”

It’s not at all what Sid expected, but at the same time it makes so much sense. “You like plants, right?”

When he looks up, Geno is eyeing him skeptically: “You don’t?”

“I like plants,” Sid says. “I just don’t know how to take care of them, I’m not home a lot.”

“Can have gardener.”

“I’ve just never seen the point.”

Geno huffs and mutters something under his breath that sounds a lot like _“he not see the point”_ , but it’s also perhaps the most ordinary interaction they’ve had, so Sid lets it slide.

“I like that you’ve brought some over, though,” he offers.

“I’m have more.”

“You can bring however many plants you want.” With the way Geno’s face lights up at that, he might regret those words later, but it’s nice seeing him smile.

*

As promised, Sid is back in better shape than ever two days later and the doctors can’t explain how he’s managed to recover so quickly. While Sid knows both exactly and not at all at the same time, he shrugs and says that he followed the instructions he was given the last time he was out with a concussion.

“It looks like you’ve dodged retirement once again,” Doctor Wennman says and shakes his head. “Actually, you seem to have made a remarkable recovery in such a short time.”

“Good doctors,” Sid says and tries smiling.

“You’re lucky, that’s what you are.” Doctor Wennman pins him with a serious look, then. “Don’t take it for granted. Next time might be different.”

Sid nods, because he knows. In a way he truly was lucky, just not in the sense Doctor Wennman thinks. “I hope there won’t be a next time.”

His return on the ice doesn’t go as planned, though. They lose 4-2 and while Sid gets an assist, it’s a frustrating loss just like any. Next game will be different, it has to be.

But it isn’t. They lose 5-2, and suddenly they’re 3-3 in games.

“Okay?” Geno asks him when he returns home that night. He’s wearing a t-shirt and his usual ripped jeans, again.

Sid very much wants to be alone and rewatch the game to pinpoint exactly where they went wrong, but living with Geno is barely a week old and he must’ve been waiting up, perched on a stool in the kitchen. He’s watching Sid with earnest eyes, clearly wanting to be supportive and he must know exactly how bad the game was.

“Not really,” Sid confesses and loosens his tie.

“Head okay?” Geno asks then, frowning. “Feel concussion still?”

“No.” Sid shakes his head. “No, my head is great, it’s the team that isn’t playing as well as we should. As we _could_.”

Nodding, Geno is quiet for another moment, before he gets up. “You take off suit, I make tea. Will make everything better.”

He’s already up, preparing the kettle, before Sid can say anything. It would be rude to decline now, and tea is a good idea, even if it wasn’t what Sid imagined for this evening.

“Go, or tea is cold when you back,” Geno says over his shoulder and Sid looks at him for another moment, and then heads for the stairs.

Once he’s drinking his tea by the kitchen counter, the heaviness of the loss has slowly started to bleed away from his shoulders. It’s spicy and with a warm flavor he can’t pinpoint.

“Next game you win,” Geno tells him and refills his mug.

“Don’t jinx it.”

“It’s not jinx, is truth.”

“You can’t...you can’t make that happen, can you?” It would be cheating and a win that isn’t earned by hard work won’t feel the same.

“No, Sid,” Geno says and smiles. “Only you can make happen.”

His chest warms and he smiles back, looking down at his mug and then the plant sitting in front of him in a pot. He’s pretty sure it wasn’t here yesterday.

“What’s this plant?” he asks, tapping the pot with his fingertip. It makes a barely-audible sound when his nail comes in contact with the clay. The flowers are pink, with thin leaves on thick stems, and look like something his grandmother would love.

“Dianthus,” Geno says. “Is for health and long life.”

Looking around, Sid notices more plants that might have been there for a few days. He’s been away to D.C. and so caught up in playing again, that he’s forgotten that Geno is still new to his house. His plants seem to multiply every time Sid comes home, though. There are plants on the window sills now, and herbs on the counter. They’re still rather few and far apart, considering the number and size of his windows, but it’s homey and his kitchen smells different.

“You can eat it?”

“Already have,” Geno says and nods towards Sid’s mug. “Can use in food too.”

“Oh.” Sid looks down at his mug and licks his lips. “It’s got a lot of taste.”

“Spicy,” Geno agrees.

“We’re getting married next week,” Sid says at the same time as the meaning of those words hit him.

Geno cocks his head to the side. “Yes.”

“I need to leave my suit at the dry cleaners.” It’s all he can come up with saying. Thinking about it makes his heart race in a less than pleasant way, which has very little to do with Geno, and very much to do with him getting married to someone he doesn’t know.

“We wear suit?”

The question brings him out of his own thoughts, and when he looks up, Geno is decidedly uncomfortable. “You don’t want that?”

“I’m not have one.”

While Sid might live a more than comfortable life now, he didn’t grow up with money, and the strain around Geno’s eyes remind him a lot of his mom whenever he needed new hockey equipment. They haven’t lived together that long, but he hasn’t missed that Geno switches between a handful of t-shirts and wears the same jeans every day. The rips might not be a fashion choice, either, but Sid can’t tell for sure.

“I’m not great at that kind of stuff, but my friend Tanger will probably love to help you find one. I’ll ask him and maybe you can decide on a day?”

Geno chews on his lip and stares out the kitchen window, even though it’s too dark to see anything outside with the lights on indoors.

“I’ll leave my card with you, obviously,” Sid clarifies, hoping to ease the worry, but that only makes Geno’s gaze snap back to him.

“Not want your money,” he says, voice sharp.

“I know,” Sid hurries. “I figure it’s my fault that you need a suit to begin with. It’s only fair that I pay for it.”

“No one’s fault.” Geno shakes his head. “Is trade, we already establish this, yes?”

“I know,” Sid says. “But it would’ve been easier for you if I wasn’t me, wouldn’t it?”

“It not work that way. If you not you, maybe trade is not big enough for marry or fix concussion.” Taking Sid’s mug to the sink, rinsing it before putting it in the dishwasher, Geno avoids looking at him. “I have to come to games?”

“Maybe,” Sid says, making his voice as gentle as possible. “It would make things more believable, I’m sure.”

With a nod, Geno starts the dishwasher and scrubs a hand over his face. “Have to think about this. I know you trying to be nice, but is more than that for me.”

“Of course.” Sid nods too. “Maybe it’ll feel more okay for you if I just pay for the stuff that you need to do for the marriage to seem real in relation to my job? Going to games, the ceremony, stuff like that?”

Geno sucks in his bottom lip between his teeth and shrugs. “Maybe. I think about and tell you tomorrow when I decide.”

“Okay, take your time.”

At that, Geno rolls his eyes with a small smile. “No time to have, Sid. We marry in a week.”

“Oh shit,” Sid breathes, his heart racing again, and Geno laughs, reaching over to pet his hand on the kitchen counter.

“I promise I be the best husband you ever have.”

“You’ll be the _only_ husband I’ve ever had,” Sid points out.

Geno grins then, tongue poking out between his teeth. “Perfect. Easy promise for keep.”

*

In the morning, Geno is gone, but there’s a note taped to one of Sid’s gatorade bottles in the fridge.

**OK.**

Frowning, Sid stares at it, before his brain connects the dots. Okay, to the suit and the clothes. That’s what it means. He takes the note, smiles at the big block letters and turns it over, adding his own message on the back:

**I’ll let Tanger know. Heading out to D.C. for game 7. Back day after tomorrow.**

Since Geno drinks a lot of tea, mostly at night it seems, Sid puts the corner under the kettle to make sure it stays put. Before he leaves, he checks on Fedor’s bowls, but they’re both filled.

“I guess he’s working,” he says to Fedor, who’s lying on the window sill between two plants. He gets a silent blink in reply, and decides to interpret that as agreement.

Geno’s car is, as expected, gone when Sid goes to get his own from the garage. It’s a beat-up truck with patches of rust on the guards around the wheels, and too many trinkets hanging from the rearview mirror. The first time Sid saw it, he was surprised by his own reaction, somehow considering it odd in his driveway. While he doesn’t buy a new car every year, unlike some of his teammates, he’s not in the same financial situation his parents were when he grew up.

He’s not as bad as some people he’s come across over the years, but it’s a hard truth to swallow: money has definitely changed him in certain ways.

In D.C., at the hotel, he seeks out Tanger. He’s skyping with his family, the phone in front of his face when he opens the door, but he steps aside to let Sid into his room anyway. He sits down on the side of the bed while he waits, taking in the mess of Tanger’s bag and the muted show on the TV.

“Alex, mon petit, mange tes légumes.”

Sid smiles to himself and tunes them out the best he can to give them privacy. It’s a known fact that Alex only likes cucumber.

Maybe he should call Geno to let him know he’s at the hotel. Or maybe not. Why would Geno need to know that? On the other hand, why would Cath need to know that about Tanger? Shit. A text is a good middle ground.

**< Just checked into the hotel in D.C. I hope work was good. There’s food in the fridge, help yourself to anything.**

With his ex, Sid used to call every night during his roadtrips, and if he for some reason couldn’t, send a few texts back and forth. It was a nice comfort, bringing closeness even when they were far apart. With Geno it’s a grey area: they’re getting married, but Sid knows next to nothing about him. Except that he’s a witch.

“What did you want?” Tanger asks and Sid jumps, dropping his phone on the bed.

If Tanger is direct, Sid can be too. “Can you help Geno pick out a suit and some clothes for coming to games, and such?”

Tanger eyes him, the skepticism as clear as day on his face. “Is there a dress code for coming to games? I must’ve missed it.”

“Well, he doesn’t...own much.” Sid sighs and shrugs. “It’s for his sake. I don’t want him to come to games, which media might expect once in a while, you know how they are, and feel like he’s being judged for not…”

“For not being what they expected?” Tanger supplies.

“I guess, yeah.” The idea of Geno being treated badly in the tabloids for not looking like he stepped out of a fashion magazine makes Sid boil inside, but he doesn’t make their rules, and he’s long since learned to live with them instead of fighting against them. “It doesn’t have to be anything extraordinary. A nice suit for the ceremony, and I don’t know, the thing _you_ do on a daily basis.”

“Care about what I wear?” Tanger snorts. “Burn polo shirts in my spare time?”

Sid rolls his eyes. “Sure, yes, that.”

“What’s his price range?” Tanger asks then, which is considerate, since he usually drags Sid into any store without asking first.

“I’ll pay.”

“And he’s fine with that?”

Sid sighs again. “Not exactly, but he said okay. I think he understands that it’s better than the alternative, even though he’s not that happy about it.”

“I can’t believe you’re getting married,” Tanger says and shakes his head in amazement. “And just to be kind to someone else.”

“It’s for his safety.” The last thing he wants is for his friends to think that Geno is some kind of charity from him. “And he does a lot for me. He’s helped me with my concussion. It’s the least I can do.”

“You do realize that it’s illegal, right?” Tanger asks him.

“Are you going to call the cops on me?”

Tanger laughs and shakes his head. “I can’t believe this. Of course I’ll help him with clothes. I know a place that can express tailor, but it’s going to cost you.”

“Just don’t tell him that.”

Tanger mimics zipping his mouth closed and tossing away the key. While he gives Sid shit on a daily basis, he’s like Flower, always there when it matters the most.

Later that night, when he’s in bed after dinner, Geno replies to his text.

**> Long day at work but am home now. Tomorrow you win ))) **

If only Geno’s magic also included seeing the future. He hesitates with his thumbs over the display for a while, but the only replies he can come up with are way too domestic for their relationship—whatever it is. To his ex he would’ve sent an _I love you_ and _good night_ , but the first is not an option and the second comes out flat without the first.

Sighing, he locks his phone and puts it on his nightstand, display down. There are other things for him to worry about right now. Game seven, and then a wedding.

Holy shit. A wedding.

*

Sid is celebrating with the team in a club somewhere in D.C. He’s lost track of where they went after the bar, and he’s celebrating too hard for a second round win, but he had an assist and his head feels _perfect_. There’s no faint ache in his joints and the tape around his wrist felt unnecessary for the first time in years. Just like Geno told him after the ritual, his body would heal from more than just the concussion. 

 _Geno_.

“He-ey,” Dumo says, bumping into him. “This is basically your bachelor party too.”

Sid watches as the realization dawns on Dumo at the same it dawns on Jake, who’s standing next to him.

“ _Dude_ ,” Jake breathes, eyes growing big. “ _Dude_.”

“No,” Sid says immediately, but it’s too late, because Dumo shouts:

“Strippers! Strippers for the bachelor party!”

“No,” Sid says again, because the last thing he wants is himself uncomfortable at a strip club somewhere, slapped all over the internet with insinuations of cheating.

“He’s old,” Flower interrupts, popping up next to him. “Leave him alone. This is more than enough for an old man like him anyway.”

“Geno is pretty jealous,” Tanger pipes up. “He wouldn’t be cool with that.”

“He isn’t jealous,” Sid protests. While it’s comfortable to use Geno as an excuse, the last thing he wants it for Geno to come off as a controlling nightmare. “But I don’t want to.”

In the end, he gets drunk off his ass with his team, Rusty tells anyone they come across that Sid is getting married, and while it’s not technically a bachelor party, it’s really great anyway.

“Is he hot, though?” Jake asks, _slurs_ more like it, when Sid pushes him into a cab and gives the driver the address to the hotel.

“Have you seen Sid?” Flower scoffs, despite never having met Geno. “Of course Geno is hot.”

But Jake is only staring at Sid who has to nod and then, without his permission, his mouth adds: “Very.”

It’s true. Objectively.

Two hours later, Flower and Tanger pour _him_ into a cab, but they go along with him.

“This is insane,” Flower says, grinning too wide and too close to Sid’s face. “I’ll be your best man.”

“It’s just going to be at the courthouse. You two can be witnesses, I don’t need a best man.”

“Yeah, right,” Flower scoffs.

The hangover is awful when he wakes up the following morning. His head is pounding and his mouth desert dry. For one terrible second, he gets flashbacks from his concussion with the way his stomach rolls whenever he moves, but it’s not. It’s not his brain, it’s just him drinking too much last night and paying for it now.

Despite having the worst hangover since last year, he smiles at the ceiling. No concussion. This will pass.

He checks his phone, sipping on a bottle of water, and there’s a text from Geno waiting for him.

**> Play so well! Big congrats on win! **

It’s sent just after the game ended. Maybe he watched or listened to it. Hopefully Geno likes hockey, or they’ll have a terrible marriage. If he doesn’t now, he might learn. A few of the guys’ girlfriends hadn’t watched a game before they started dating, and Sid is pretty sure they’re at every single home game these days.

Even though he’s not marrying Geno out of love, the idea of Geno ending up being unhappy with him is terrifying.

**< Thank you! I’m home around 6. I can pick up dinner on the way home, what would you like?**

He showers and jerks off quickly under the hot spray. It’s strange sleeping in bed with a semi-stranger and the last time Sid saw, Geno’s belongings had slowly started reaching the shelves in the bathroom, too. It’s not like he can spend his free mornings jerking off in bed anymore. Maybe next season he’ll utilize the roadtrips better than he does now, when he’s too tired and wrung out from a long season.

Before taking the bus to the airport, he stops by a small convenience store a block away and gets a bottle of Gatorade. Just by the register, there’s a small display of Washington D.C. magnets. On a whim, he picks one of a skyline with the White House, the monument and the Capitol, and puts it on the counter as well.

“This one too, please.”

The magnet gets hidden away in a small brown paper bag that he stuff into his coat pocket, and he opens the bottle on his way out.

When he lands, Geno has replied to his text about dinner.

**> Can eat anything ))**

Shrugging to himself, Sid swings by his favorite steakhouse and orders his usual for the both of them. It’ll be nice coming home, stretching out on the couch and maybe watching a movie.

Geno’s car is in the driveway when Sid parks in the garage, and there’s movement in the kitchen. It’s been a long time since he had someone to come home to.

When he enters the kitchen, he finds Geno closing the dishwasher with his foot, and drying his hands on a towel. The table has been set, with two sets of plates, cutlery and glasses, as well as a huge pitcher of iced water.

“Hey,” Sid says and smiles when Geno turns towards him.

His hair is rumpled and his t-shirt has wet stains, but he smiles back. “Welcome home.”

Sid’s throat goes tight unexpectedly, and he has to swallow twice to get his voice back. “Thanks.”

Then they stare at each other, until Sid remembers the bag of food in his hand. “Oh, I’ll just go up and change.”

He leaves the bag on the counter and hesitates with his hand hovering above his coat pocket, before he takes the small paper bag out and sets it on the counter next to the food. Geno’s eyebrows climb.

“It’s just something silly,” he hurries to explain when Geno’s eyebrows climb. “You can throw it away if you want to.”

His idea was to go upstairs, but Geno takes the bag gingerly in his large hands and Sid can’t move. Instead he watches as Geno takes out the magnet and turns it over in his hand, flat on his palm, and a smile grows on his face with every second that passes.

“You get for me?” he asks, glancing up at Sid before returning to the magnet once more.

“I figured, you know, since you weren’t there. I just saw it.”

He isn’t sure if Geno even listens, because he’s looking at the magnet as though it’s a jewel and not a tourist knickknack. When Geno looks up, his eyes are warm.

“Thank you.” His voice is full of sincerity, and he reaches out to squeeze Sid’s hand. “Food go cold. Go change.”

Blinking, Sid pulls his hand back to change out of his suit. When he comes back down again, Geno has put the food on their plates and the magnet sits proudly at the center of the fridge.

“I watch game,” Geno tells him as he sits down, and Sid spends dinner listening to Geno retelling every detail of the game as though Sid wasn’t in the middle of it himself. For some reason, he can’t stop smiling.

That night, he watches Geno sit against the headboard on his side of the bed reading a book, until his eyes grow too heavy to keep open. The last thing he remembers is Geno chuckling at something on the page.

*

Despite knowing exactly what their deal is, Sid’s hands are sweaty when he stands in front of the official at the courthouse. Geno is wearing his new, charcoal suit that Tanger helped him pick out, and a tie that Sid is quite sure is his. The blue is nice against the fabric of the suit. To his comfort, Geno looks equally nervous, constantly fiddling with his cufflinks.

Gonch, Tanger and Flower are standing beside them, all dressed up even though Sid told them they didn’t have to.

Sid’s voice breaks a little when he says _I do_ , and Geno’s wavers.

“Would you like to exchange rings?” the official asks. She’s a lady in her seventies, officiating weddings every now and then when they’re understaffed, as she told them when they came in.

“Um,” Sid says and pats his pockets, despite knowing all too well that he hasn’t bought any rings for them.

“I told you you need a best man,” Flower snorts and produces a small, velvet box from his pocket. “I’ve got you covered.”

Inside are two rings, both bands in matte platinum. One with a thin, white gold grooving running down the center portion. The other is plain at first sight, but when he tilts the box, it’s side set with diamonds. That one has Sid’s name engraved on the inside, so it’s for Geno.

He extracts it carefully and holds out his other hand for Geno’s.

“We wear on right,” Geno says and places his hand in Sid’s. “In Russia.”

It’s surreal, sliding a wedding band on someone else’s finger. Even more so, when Geno returns the favor. His hands are so warm against Sid’s own.

There, in front of the wedding official, Geno kisses him for the first time. It’s chaste, nothing but a brush of lips, but Sid’s mouth tingles for hours afterwards.

“They’re a bit big,” Flower says afterwards, when Sid stares at his ring at the restaurant where they’re eating late lunch all four of them. Gonch had to pick his kids up from school. “But I figured it’s better to resize them, than not being able to get them on in front of the official.”

“Very beautiful,” Geno says, and Sid knows it’s about the ring, but Geno is looking at him.

“You’re less boring than Sid, so you deserve some bling.”

It looks good on him, Sid thinks. Geno’s ring is wider than his, which fits his longer fingers well. Sid’s is slightly slimmer and now as he stares down at it, he’s glad Flower picked something less plain. It doesn’t come off as a basic wedding band, or the rush decision all of this was.

“Thank you,” he says to Flower.

“I have great taste.”

Tanger snorts. “Geno’s suit is nice too, don’t you think?”

Sid lets his gaze trail over the fabric and how it fits Geno to perfection. It cost him more than his own suits usually do, but Geno is worth every penny and more. “Yes, the fit is great.”

“He tailor so fast.” Geno shakes his head in disbelief. “I think will turn out bad, but is perfect for me.”

From the kitchen, a waiter shows up with a bottle of champagne that Sid definitely didn’t order. When he pops the cork, Flower grins and says: “Welcome to the family, Geno. Congrats on the marriage.”

It was supposed to be a simple lunch before his media obligations, but after the champagne, a cake arrives as well and Tanger produces a wedding cake topper from his suit pocket and pushes it down at the center of the cake.

“Russian banana cake,” he explains. “I can’t let you guys get married so boringly. Not even a cake.”

While this isn’t what Sid planned for at all, his chest fills to the brim with gratitude. “Thank you.”

“Is my favorite cake,” Geno says from the other side of the table, eyeing the topper. It’s of two men, both in suits. Maybe they don’t exist in Russia. “Now I know why you ask at tailor.”

“When your friend is a shitty romantic you have to make up for what you can.”

Sid rolls his eyes. He’s a great romantic, but that does require him to be in love. Still, this is better than anything he could’ve hoped for. Sometime during the cake cutting, where Geno keeps dragging his finger through the topping and Sid keeps having to bat his hand away, laughing only partially because of the two bottles of champagne they’ve had by then, Flower takes a photo of them.

He only finds out about it because it arrives in a message later that night, when Geno is at work and Sid is back home after phone interviews and filling in Pens PR on the wedding news. Jen wasn’t as angry as he feared, so Mario must’ve notified them all already.

It’s a simple photo in a sense. No stilted wedding photographs, but Sid is smiling, his ring glinting in the candle light as he tries to cut the cake, and attempting to keep Geno’s hands away. Geno is grinning, the stolen frosting clearly visible on his finger halfway to his mouth.

Flower’s message is simple: **Thought this was a good photo. Tanger wants to post it to Instagram, is that OK?**

Sid’s initial reaction is to say no. His marriage isn’t for public consumption, but then again, this might just help it seem more legitimate.

**< Ask Geno if he’s okay with that first. **

**> Already have, he’s given his permission. **

**< Then go ahead. **

Sid saves the photo to his phone and sends it to Taylor and his parents with a short: _Was at the courthouse today. Everything went well and we had lunch and cake afterwards._

Taylor’s reply is immediate: **Omg Squid! You guys are already so cute.** She’s added a few emojis with heart-eyes and Sid smiles.

**< Thanks. Come for a visit soon. :) **

**> Stop being so secretive, you clam! You have to give me something more than THANKS**

**< In-person only, a visit is required**

Just because they’re adults now, it doesn’t mean that Sid has to stop being an older brother to her. It’s probably never going to happen.

Her only reply is a bunch of displeased smileys, but she’ll text him in a few days with suggested dates. He hopes that she’ll like Geno and that Geno will like her, or things will get complicated fast.

Sid is lying on the couch in the den, watching reruns of Duck Dynasty when Geno comes home after work. He pauses in the doorway and Sid’s breath catches when the light catches Geno’s wedding band.

“How was work?” he asks. Maybe he should sit up, but honestly, this is too comfortable and they’re playing Senators in just two days.

“Was good, mostly work after open hours, so is planting and water. I like that most.” Geno steps into the room and sits down on the armrest of the couch. “How is your day?”

“It’s been busy.” Sid shrugs. “But good. Flower told me they’d asked you about posting that photo on Instagram.”

“Yes.” Geno squints at him. “Not okay?”

“It’s fine, I just wanted to make sure that they actually did ask you.”

“Is good picture,” Geno says with a shrug. “Tanger write nice things and Penguins repost too.”

“How d’you know?”

Geno looks at him like he’s an alien. “I’m also have Instagram?”

“Can I see?”

Grinning, Geno slides his phone from his pocket. “Maybe not. Maybe you get own account if I say no?”

But he still unlocks his phone, opens the app and finds the picture before handing it over to Sid. Tanger has added a caption to it: **Honoured to be there when these two decided to put a ring on it. Best of luck! (Geno, you’re welcome for the cake)**

Sid snorts and then finds the Penguins’ account. They’ve only added: **Congratulations, cap!**  

It’s enough to make things official, without making it a too big of a deal.

“It’s a good picture,” Sid says. “I saved it to my phone.”

“I do too.” Geno locks his phone and then presses the home button, and there it is, as his lock screen. “Coworkers so nosy, ask why I’m not have picture, why I not tell.”

Sid sits up. “Are they giving you trouble?”

“No.” Geno smiles. “They best, but sometimes they like family, want to know everything.”

That sounds a lot like Sid’s teammates. He pulls his legs towards himself and gestures to the free spot on the couch. “Do you want to sit down? Watch something?”

“Okay, yes.” Then Geno’s smile turns smug. “Maybe not so bad show?”

“Hey, don’t hate on Duck Dynasty,” Sid protests.

“Worst I’m ever see,” Geno sighs and shakes his head. “Not sure I’m even okay with watch for my husband.”

He still does, though. They watch until Sid has to go to bed, and Geno complains the entire time, but it doesn’t sound like he actually means it.

*

In Ottawa, Sid buys another magnet. They’re even in games and it feels like the right thing to do after a hard fought win in game four. It’s frustrating, because the reporters concentrate more on his recent marriage than their play, but Sid refuses to talk about it.

“I’ve got nothing for you there,” he says when a reporter asks if he’s got any more unexpected personal news. When he’s asked if he’s too distracted to play, he has to remind himself that he’s being video taped and says: “All my focus is on the game ahead and making sure we give 110%.”

Geno is home when Sid steps through the door from the garage. His body is tired, sore from hard games, and he wants nothing more than go to bed. But when he enters the kitchen, he finds the table set and Geno at the stove. He’s barefoot, which he is almost all the time—Sid has noticed—and humming under his breath as he stirs whatever’s in the pot.

“Hey,” Sid says, breathing in the scent of the food.

Geno glances over his shoulder, smiling. “Welcome home. I make borscht, you want some?”

While he was ready for bed a second ago, the fact that Geno has prepared dinner for them just in time for Sid’s arrival home is so considerate that he can’t say no.

“Sure, I’ve never had that before.” It might not fit in his meal plan, either, but he’s usually strict so this once can’t matter too much.

“Is Russian,” Geno explains, perhaps a little unnecessary. “My mama do a lot when I’m small.”

There’s something in Geno’s voice when he mentions her that tells Sid not to ask, instead he puts the small paper bag with the magnet on the counter and says: “I’d be happy to try it. Let me just change out of my suit.”

The magnet has taken place next to the D.C. one on the fridge, when he comes downstairs again, and Sid smiles.

“Soon is map over every team you beat,” Geno says and when Sid turns around, he’s holding the pot in checkered oven mitts.

“I don’t know about that.” But his smile grows wider on its own.

Borscht turns out to be soup, somewhere between red and purple in color and a blob of sour cream in the middle. It’s mostly vegetables and it tastes unfamiliar, but good. At the center of the table is a tall glass with the same blue flowers Sid saw in Geno’s home the first time they met.

“What kind of flowers are these?”

“Flax flower,” Geno says around his spoon.

“Is it, um,” Sid gestures with his hand, trying to convey _magic_.

“Everything and nothing is,” Geno says, and his smile is the one of secretly entertained again. “You have lots in home without know, but it’s like...car without battery. Need something for charge for it to work, you know.”

“Are you the battery?”

Geno nods. “You can do little thing, herbs and stones still have all properties, like car can roll if you push, even if you can’t start when turning key, yes? But it’s not full potential.”

“So what do flax flowers do?”

Geno visibly hesitates then, eyes growing dark in a way Sid hasn’t seen since the first time they met. “They good for protection. Make invisible for evil.”

Choking on his water, Sid puts his glass down and thumps his hand to his chest. “Evil?”

“Lots of evil out there.” Geno shrugs. “Not want burglar come here, no? Or Wilson.”

Startling out a laugh, Sid shakes his head. “I’ll pretend not to hear that.”

“Please,” Geno scoffs. “He go for head every chance.”

“I’m not saying you’re wrong!”

“Can say I’m most right, is not interview, Sid, I’m your husband.” Geno grins, tongue between his teeth and Sid smiles back, his stomach all warm from the soup.

The next game against Senators, he finds a small black stone in one of the compartments of his gear bag. At first he thinks it’s a random stone, but when he picks it up, it’s warm to the touch. It’s not hard to guess who put it there. He squeezes it in his palm once, before putting it back where he found it.

After a win in 2OT, Sid's heart soars when he lifts the Prince of Wales trophy. One more round, and they’re back-to-back champions.

They don’t celebrate much that night. Not because they’re not happy with the win, but because their bodies are exhausted and they need all the rest they can get before the finals start.

Geno is already in bed, asleep, when Sid comes home late that night, but there’s a balloon in the kitchen tied to a glass bottle of something blue-ish on the kitchen counter. The note under the bottle says: **Drink, sleep. Congratulations on big win!** Whatever it is in the bottle, it’s refreshing and his spine tingles. Maybe he shouldn’t trust Geno so blindly, but so far he hasn’t been led astray.

Geno is on his side of the bed, when Sid gets upstairs. He freezes in the doorway. That’s his husband, his actual husband with a ring on his finger. Sid twists his own wedding band, stomach clenching, and walks as quietly as he can into the closet to undress.

When he gets into bed, Geno barely stirs. Sid looks at him, at the way his hand is a little dry and raw where he’s clutching the pillow, like maybe he scrubs his hands clean after work. Soil and potting mixes can’t be easy to get rid off after a full day at work.

Settling in himself, his hand brushes against something unfamiliar under the pillow and when he pulls it out, it’s a similar sachet to the one he saw Geno with forever ago. The edges are carefully sewn together with blue string, handmade by the looks of it. Pressing it to his nose, the smell is one he recognizes, but he can’t pinpoint from where or of what. He puts it back underneath his pillow and listens to Geno’s faint snores. What else can he do, that isn’t crystals and herbs? What is it that he’s hiding from?

Sid doesn’t know him very well yet, but so far he could do a lot worse when it comes to a spouse.

*

“I come to game,” Geno tells him the night before the first game against Nashville. “I think important I’m there for media.”

It’s not like Sid can see him in the stands, but there’s an odd sense of grounding when he steps onto the ice that night. They play well, and he gets two assists for their win. Game two goes the same way, but Geno can’t travel with him to Nashville because of work and Sid is off-kilter in an unfamiliar way for game three and four. While he does score their only goal in game four, it’s mostly by pure frustration.

He doesn’t forget to stop by the nearest tourist shop and buy another kitchen magnet for Geno, though. It seems crucial, somehow.

Travelling home, he feels distant from his own body, as though filtered, and the feeling stays until he steps through the door to their home. Slowly, the connection slips into place and his gut settles, grounding.

With a frown, Sid sets down the plastic bag with the magnet on the kitchen counter and tries to listen for signs of Geno. The house is quiet with the exception of Fedor, who meows from the window sill before leaping down, rubbing himself against Sid’s leg.

“Hey.” Crouching down, Sid strokes the silky-soft fur between Fedor’s ears and scratches his chin. “Where’s Geno?”

Fedor meows again and purrs, apparently unbothered by Geno’s whereabouts as long as he gets pets.

Sid peeks through rooms as he goes upstairs, but they’re all empty. It’s unsettling, because Geno knows to put the security system on when he leaves for work unless Sid is home. So where the hell is he? Changing into jeans and a t-shirt, Sid goes downstairs again to make dinner, when he notices that the back door is cracked open.

Shit. Is it burglars? Or whatever Geno is hiding from? With his heart racing in his chest, he pushes the door open further. And...there’s Geno, pouring soil in the wooden planters with earphones in and he's singing along to whatever he's listening to. It sounds awful.

Sid steps out on the back porch and knocks over a small rock with his foot. It skitters to the side and he bends down to put it back again, whatever it is, and when he looks up, Geno is watching him with the earbuds hanging around his neck.

“Sorry, not hear you come home.” He gestures to the earphones. Then he looks down at the planters and rubs a hand over the back of his neck, making it dirty from the soil. “They stand here empty. I assume you okay with plants, but now I think maybe I should ask first?”

It takes Sid a long second to realize that they're the same ones Vero got him as a housewarming gift when he first moved in.

“Of course, I think they're just happy to be of use when they've been sitting empty for years.”

Geno wipes his hands on his jeans, leaving stains from the soil, and nods. “You hungry?”

“Not exactly.” Even though his center has somehow re-connected to the rest of his body, now that he's home, the losses are still wearing on him. “I just want to lie down.”

Geno visibly hesitates. “Maybe bath?”

It’s not said outright, but he’s not asking if Sid wants to take a bath, he’s asking if he wants Geno to bathe him. In an instant, he’s back to Geno covering him in that paste, and being stark naked with a stranger. They’re not strangers anymore and, well, Sid misses the intimacy of someone else. Being married, it’s not like he can go out and find someone to spend the night with, the way he usually would.

“That sounds good,” he says finally. “If you’re okay with that?”

Geno nods. “I fix for you, but have to eat something first. After bath you will fall asleep.”

By now, Sid knows better than to question Geno on these statements. So far he’s been right, and well, falling asleep early might just be exactly what he needs.

He’s just rinsing out the bowl and putting it in the dishwasher, when Geno shows up in the doorway. He’s wearing sweats now, and a new t-shirt, drying his forearms with a towel.

“Is ready for you,” he says.

“You didn’t have to prepare everything for me,” Sid protests. The last thing he wants it for Geno to think of himself as some kind of servant.

Geno smirks. “Oh, you can do yourself? I’m not know you also have magic.”

Okay, that’s...true. “Fine,” Sid huffs and smiles against his own will.

“I like doing for you,” Geno says quietly as he trails after Sid up the stairs. “Is not chore or issue.”

“It’s just...it’s weird that someone else prepares my baths for me.”

“Only special bath.”

The bath is filled to the brim with water that’s tinted pink, with white and pink flowers that Sid recognizes from his grandma’s precious magnolia tree. The light is dimmed low and the room smells soft and warm, causing the worry to start seeping from his shoulders.

“Can get in.” Geno gesticulates to the bath and then turns to two jars standing on the shelf. “I prepare last things.

“We can talk?” Sid asks as he reaches for his fly.

“Is not ritual, only nice bath.”

“It looks nice.” He tries for casual, but it’s still strange to undress in front of Geno like this, when he’s not getting ready for bed or is in a locker room with his team. Well, it’s nothing Geno hasn’t seen before, and he pulls off his underwear, throwing them in the hamper while he’s at it.

“Is for relax and good sleep. It will calm your mind and make you not feel so stress,” Geno says behind him and Sid is proud that he doesn’t jump.

When he turns around, Geno has placed the jars on the edge of the tub and he’s waiting, looking at Sid with expectation. So he gets in, accepting Geno’s hand as an offer of help, and sinks down in the water. It’s borderline too hot, but when Geno sticks his fingers in the water, the temperature seems to drop just enough to be comfortable.

“Magnolia?” Sid asks, even though he knows, and catches a flower in his hand.

“Magnolia bark,” Geno explains. “Is good for lot of things. I cook and then I use water in bath.”

“What about the flowers?”

The silence that follows makes Sid look up. Geno concentrates on one of the jars, drops the wooden mini-version of a spatula and swears under his breath.

“They just for pretty,” he says finally.

Sid is grateful for the dim lighting, because his face grows hot. Clearing his throat, he lets the flower back into the water and says, “Well, you succeeded with that.”

It should perhaps be weirder to sit here, stark naked, with Geno on the edge of the tub stirring his jar, but it’s not.

“Sometimes, when everything is heavy, extra care make you feel better.”

He’s warmer, suddenly, to the bones of his body. Maybe Geno added something to the water just now, or maybe it’s the fact that he put extra care into Sid’s bath just because he’s had a shitty few days with back-to-back losses.

Looking up from the flowers, Sid finds Geno looking at him with a barely-there smile. Smiling back, he relaxes against the tub. “It does, thank you.”

“Good.” Geno holds up the jar. “I make for your hair. Okay I put in? Is good for relax, will work when you sleep.”

Nodding, Sid closes his eyes. “For sure.”

Geno wets his hair with careful scoops of his hands into the bath. It takes longer than if Sid would’ve just dunked his head under the surface, but the procedure is calming in itself. Then, Geno starts working the contents of the jar into Sid’s hair, and he breathes in deep, trying to catch the scent.

“Is eucalyptus,” Geno says and makes Sid shiver as he kneads his fingers into his scalp. “Opens airways, make you more relax. Perfect for sleep.”

“I knew I recognized it,” Sid murmurs and breathes in again, his chest becoming lighter.

“Now shh,” Geno scolds, his voice gentle. “I do work, you relax.”

It doesn’t take long before Sid drifts a little, his mind going into that vacuum where he’s fully aware and so far away at the same time. Geno hums a melody he doesn’t recognize under his breath, but it sounds distant.

The water stays hot and his lungs feel bigger, full of fresh air and the heaviness of losing slowly rinses away with every handful of water Geno pours over his hair.

When Geno nudges him, however long later, Sid blinks back to reality. It’s still dim in the bathroom, still warm and cozy.

“Ready for bed?” Geno asks him and squeezes the last of the water from Sid’s hair with a fluffy towel.

Sid checks his body; it’s heavy in a comfortable, pleased way. “I think so.”

As he gets out of the tub, Geno puts away the jars, giving Sid some privacy to towel himself dry. The bathtub is still full and Sid hesitates.

“I take care,” Geno says, giving Sid flashbacks to when they first met and he seemed to read minds. “Go to bed.”

“Will you come to bed, too?” Sid asks, because it now feels crucial that Geno is as close to him as possible.

Geno smiles and his shirt clings to him from spending time in the damp air. “Yes, give me few minutes.”

Sid goes to find fresh underwear and then climbs into bed. The scents from the bath still cling to his skin, and even though game five is waiting on the doorstep, he’s calm.

Listening to the sound of the water draining, he reaches over and tries to get Geno’s pillow a bit fluffier. Then he waits. It’s been a long time since he waited for someone else to get in bed, just for the habit of it. It’s nice.

When Geno finally comes out of the bathroom, he’s in his underwear and his hair is a mess. Sid smiles.

“Thank you.”

“For what?”

“For the bath, it’s exactly what I needed tonight.”

Geno smiles back then. “I know.”

“Are you coming to the next game?” Sid asks then, because he wants Geno there.

“Yes,” Geno says with a nod. “Also game six. You win in game six.”

“I hope you’re right.”

“Always right.” Geno winks. “Now you sleep. I be here, reading before is my turn.”

Sid nods and hides his smile in his pillow. “Alright, good night.”

“Sleep well,” Geno says, settling in against the headboard and grabbing his book from his nightstand. “Thanks for fluff pillow.”

How…? Sid’s fingers come in contact with the small burlap sachet and he curls his hand around it. “You’re welcome.”

After a moment of silence, Geno strokes him over the hair. “Sleep now.”

*

Geno is there for game five and they win. Hope reignites in Sid’s chest, and he finds Geno waiting for him after his usual interviews. He’s wearing different clothes; still in jeans, yes, but they’re dark denim (without tears) and a grey, knitted sweater that looks so soft that Sid has to reach out and touch it.

“You like?” Geno asks, smiling.

“It looks good on you.” Sid returns the smile.

“Congrats on big win.” Geno reaches out and takes his hand, and for a second Sid doesn’t get why, before a few from the staff walk past them, all knowing grins.

“Thanks.” Squeezing his fingers, Sid keeps his hold of Geno’s hand as they walk towards the parking lot. “I’m glad you were here. It means a lot.”

“Glad I’m here too.”

Sid looks around for Geno’s car as he walks towards his own, but he can’t spot it anywhere. “Where’s your car?”

“Cath give me ride,” Geno explains. “It break down again.”

“It happens often?”

“Too often,” Geno sighs. “Maybe have to buy new.”

Sid bites his tongue on an offer. Buying Geno a car would be a small expense for him in comparison. While he doesn’t know what one makes when working at a plant nursery, it’s not likely that much.

“Not even think about it,” Geno says, voice stern, but when Sid looks at him he doesn’t seem too upset.

“I didn’t say anything.”

“You have worst poker face outside of interview,” Geno scoffs. “Is written all over face.”

“I do not.”

At home, they make dinner together and just as Sid is about to get milk from the fridge, he spots the Nashville magnet.

“Do you really think we’ll win in game six?” he asks.

Geno is chopping vegetables with his back turned, and he only lifts one shoulder. “Yes.”

“My family is going to come to the game.” Shit, his family. They’ll go straight to Nashville for the game, and then come back to Pittsburgh—either for celebrations or support for a game seven.

“I come too,” Geno says.

Sid stares at his back. “You are?”

“Is important I’m there for big win, no?” Geno stops chopping, and then he glances over his shoulder. “Or you not want me there? If I’m there when you win, they expect pictures.”

“I want you there.” He likes the way he feels around Geno; grounded, as though more deeply connected to something vital. Geno is his husband, maybe forever, and not having him there if they win another cup is out of the question. “I want you there,” he repeats.

Geno straightens and begins chopping again. “Okay, I’m there.”

“I’ll make sure you have a room at our hotel.” Last year, Sid’s ex went with them on a few road trips, but he didn’t always want to stay at the same hotels. Understandable, of course, because the team’s hotels are picked based on access to and from the arena, as well as the airport, plus comfort. His ex wanted to experience the city when Sid was stuck in morning skates or team breakfasts. The Hilton downtown in Nashville can provide Geno with things to see, and Sid with being close to him.

“You can do?”

“Of course, if that’s what you want? I think both Cath and Vero, plus the kids are going to stay there too.”

“What about family?” Geno asks then.

“What family?”

Geno laughs. “Your family.”

“I guess they’ll stay there too.”

At that, Geno pauses his chopping again. “They know our deal?”

“No.” Sid bites his lip. “They think it’s a greencard thing.”

“Right.” Nodding, Geno picks up the knife. “You tell me before, I remember.”

“Is that okay?”

“Of course okay.” Geno glances over his shoulder, and Sid really wishes he wouldn’t do that while chopping stuff. “Maybe I can spend some time with them, so we look like family who close when we at game.”

Sighing internally, Sid picks up his phone from the kitchen counter. “I’m sorry, I didn’t even think of that. Taylor will be thrilled to meet you finally, and my parents will love you. I’ll give you Taylor’s number and yours to her, and you guys can make a plan? I’m really sorry for putting you in this position, G.”

Geno puts the knife down and turns around. “Put me in position?”

“Meeting the family and everything,” Sid explains.

“You not put _me_ in position, Sid. I put _you_ in position. You have to introduce to family, tell lies, because I need for marry you. And now you sorry for me?”

“Well, you got me back on the ice.” In comparison, it’s a small price to pay. Especially since Geno is, well, a nice partner to have. At least so far.

“Is different,” Geno dismisses. “I’m happy to help. Spending time with family is not big deal for me. Is important to you, so of course I do.”

“We’re pretty close,” Sid says. “My family and I.”

He immediately regrets it when Geno’s gaze grows distant and wounded. Sid doesn’t know anything about Geno’s family, but it doesn’t seem like they’re on good terms, if they’re around at all.

“Hey,” Sid says, trying to make his voice soft. “Do you want to pick a movie, and we’ll eat in the den?”

“Anything I want?” Geno asks, squinting at him in suspicion.

“Anything.”

“We watch Marley.”

Sid can’t go back on his word, and they both end up wiping their eyes to Marley & Me. Going to bed is routine now, brushing their teeth side by side at the sink, undressing and going to bed. He’s so used to seeing Geno barely-clothed, even though they’re not having sex. It’s a little strange, but mostly nice.

*

Sid is preparing for the game when his family lands in Nashville. He tries his best not to think about leaving Geno alone with them, without Sid there as a buffer. Taylor will do well, but even though his parents have kind hearts, they might not know how to deal with the nature of Sid’s and Geno’s marriage.

The last thing he wants is for Geno to feel like he’s accused of something that isn’t true. But his family can never know why this deal was arranged to begin with.

As if knowing that Sid’s mind is racing, Geno sends him a message. It’s a photo of him, Taylor and Sid’s parents, all squeezed together to fit in the same picture. Behind them, far in the background is a tiger. They’re at the zoo, then.

Sid smiles, taking in the happy expression of his family. All of his family. The knot in his stomach eases and he takes a breath. It’s all fine.

**< Looks like you’re having a good time. See you after the game!**

Then he turns his phone off and gets his head in the right space. They have a game to win, a cup to bring back home to Pittsburgh for another year.

Stepping out on the ice that night, he’s confident. The feelings stays throughout the game and he’s happy, but unsurprised when Horny scores the first goal, and then, not even 90 seconds later, Hags scores the second.

Then they’re celebrating and Sid is shouting himself hoarse. When their families pile onto the ice, he has tears in his eyes, hugging them all hard until he reaches Geno. Without thinking, Sid kisses him. In front of everyone and all the cameras. And Geno kisses him back.

“Congratulations,” Geno murmurs against his lips and then pulls back to look Sid in the eye. He looks proud. Sid’s heart clenches. “I tell you you win in game six.”

“You did,” Sid agrees, and then he kisses Geno once more, before there are team photos.

He takes one with his family and the cup, Geno standing next to him, with an arm around his shoulders. They’re closer in height like this, when Sid is on his skates, and Sid can’t stop grinning at the camera.

Then there’s champagne showers in the locker room and Sid is hazy long before they head out for a club. Geno finds him just before they leave, pressing a kiss to his lips and says: “Go celebrate.”

Sid doesn’t normally dance, but he does tonight and there’s a lot of love going around the team. He’s pretty sure Horny kisses him twice, just a big smack on the lips whenever he remembers that the cup is actually theirs. And then there’s Jakey who’s hanging off of Shearsy’s shoulder, repeatedly stating that he loves _everyone_ over and over again, until they have to put him in a cab to the hotel.

It’s closer to morning when Sid comes back to his room. He looks at the bed for a while. It’s the same one he slept in the night before, but he can’t remember it seeming quite so empty back then. Geno is here in the hotel, two floors up. Sid knows, because he picked Geno’s room himself.

Without thinking too much, he grabs his keycard and his phone from the desk again, and heads the two floors up. It’s four-thirty in the morning and it doesn’t dawn on him that Geno might already be asleep, until he’s already knocked at the door.

It takes a while before Geno opens. He’s sleep-rumpled, just how Sid knows him from every other morning at home, and wrapped in a sheet.

“Sid?” Geno croaks, squinting at him.

Sid’s chest expands just as it did on the ice when he hoisted the cup. “Can I sleep here? I want to sleep with you.”

Geno stares at him in surprise for a moment, before he nods and steps aside. “Of course. Come.”

The room is bigger than Sid’s. A junior suite, because it’s what he figured he could get away with without Geno finding out that Sid tries to spoil him just a little.

“Sorry for waking you,” Sid manages as he watches Geno sit down on the side of the bed, yawning.

“Is okay.” Geno looks up at him, smiling a little. “You forget key for your room?”

“No,” Sid says, affronted, and pulls the card from his pocket. It’s not until he’s tossed it on the side table in Geno’s room, that he realizes that maybe this is weird and he should explain himself. “I’ve gotten used to sleeping with you.”

Geno’s gaze softens. “Okay. I need more sleep, come.”

Sid rids himself of all of his clothes—Geno’s already seen him naked several times, it’s not a big deal, and slides into bed. The sheets are warm, like the times he’s gone to bed at home when Geno is already asleep. It’s familiar and he sighs as he rolls over on his stomach.

“Thank you,” he mumbles, face pressed into the pillow.

“Sleep,” Geno says, and strokes his hair only once. “So proud of you for win.”

Sid falls asleep with a smile on his face.

Waking up is less of a pleasant experience, however. His head is pounding and all he can think of is how dry his mouth is.

“Here.” Geno’s large hand lands between his shoulder blades, and the familiarity of it lessens the headache somewhat. “I make drink for you.”

When Sid cracks his eyes open, Geno holds out a large glass of something that looks like green water. It’s too brilliant in color to be any kind of tea Sid has ever seen, and the glass is cold when he takes it.

“Not taste great,” Geno warns him. “But will make hangover better in maybe twenty minute.”

That’s definitely worth it. Sid chugs it down and ignores the taste the best that he can. After, he presses his face against the pillow again and groans. Fuck. He’s not going to start this day with throwing up.

“It get better,” Geno soothes, and rubs his back.

When Sid cracks his eyes open again, he gets a glimpse of Geno’s thigh and side. He’s not wearing underwear. While Sid has been around Geno completely naked a few times by now, Geno has always worn something around him. To bed, he wears underwear and sometimes a t-shirt if he thinks it’s chilly, and at all other times he wears his jeans and t-shirt.

“Is rude for look,” Geno says, but Sid can hear the smirk in his voice. He knows it by now, from when Geno teases him about anything and everything.

“It’s only fair,” Sid mutters, but he closes his eyes again anyway. “You’ve seen me several times.”

Geno chuckles. “This is trade? I’m not know.”

Before Sid can reply, Geno has gotten up from the bed and locked himself into the bathroom, though. Sid listens to the water from the shower and breathes through the nausea until it slowly fades, and the headache turns into nothing more than an uncomfortable pressure behind his eyes.

He sits up then, finding the bottle of water standing on the bedside table on his side, and downs all of it. When Geno comes out of the bathroom, he’s wearing nothing but a towel that looks way too small on his tall body.

Sid hasn’t really seen him like this before. Geno might not be a professional athlete, but his arms and shoulders are strong, and the slight softness to his stomach makes Sid want to touch.

“Sorry for waking you in the middle of the night,” Sid says with a grimace.

Geno looks up at him in surprise. “Not have to say sorry. If I’m not okay with you here, I’m not open door.”

“Okay.” Sid’s gaze falls on a small, plush penguin on the desk. “How was the zoo yesterday?”

Geno’s face lights up as he pulls on underwear and a shirt. “Was fun! It was Taylor’s idea. She so great, take best care of me and help me talk to parents.”

“Were they not nice to you?”

“They most nice, but sometimes I’m not know all words and Taylor make sure I feel okay when we spend time with them. Sometimes she take me and look at cute animals without them, and I think it’s to give me space, you know?”

Sid makes a mental note of texting Taylor and telling her thanks. “I’m glad she took good care of you. She’s been excited to meet you since I told her about you.”

“They come back with us, yes? Stay in house?”

“That’s the plan, if you’re okay with that? If not, they can stay at a hotel.”

Geno looks at him like he’s crazy. “Of course they stay in house. You have house for twenty people.”

“And you live there too,” Sid says. “I don’t want you to feel uncomfortable in your own home.”

Geno pauses then. “Thank you,” he says, voice quiet.

“For what?”

“You say it’s my home too.” Geno gives him a one shoulder-shrug. “Is not given that you think that.”

Sid swallows, easing away the tightness in his throat. “I’m sorry if I’ve done anything to make you think that, but of course it’s your home too, G.”

“You not do anything to make me think.” Geno shakes his head and comes to sit next to Sid on the bed. “Is our home.”

“It is.” Sid smiles. “I guess that sort of comes with being married.”

Geno smiles back and looks down at his ring. “Yes.”

*

Things are more or less an endless celebration after that. Sid drinks beer at ten a.m. and only comes home when his body screams for sleep. Even though he’s having the time of his life with his team, and his family (all of it, Geno too) at the cup parade, one of the best things is having all that, and still coming home to his and Geno’s bed at the end of the day.

Tonight, Sid is mostly sober when he slides into bed after a quick shower. Geno stirs, turning towards him.

“Home early,” he mumbles.

“It’s one-thirty.”

“You usually home four.” Geno gives him a sleepy smile. “You have fun?”

“Yeah.” They went to a karaoke bar and that’s just not...Sid’s thing, no matter how many shots they tried to give him. “But I wanted to go home anyway. Sorry for waking you.”

“I’m light sleeper,” Geno explains. “Always wake when you come to bed. Is nice, I like knowing you home safe.”

Sid reaches out, stroking the soft hairs on Geno’s forearm where it’s resting on top of the covers. “It’s nice having someone to come home to.”

Grasping his hand, Geno smiles. “Yes. So happy you get to celebrate, no one deserve more than you.”

Sid rubs Geno’s chapped knuckles with his thumb. “Did you work today?”

“Double shift,” Geno says. “I cover for my colleague, her kid is sick.”

“How was it?”

Geno lets go of Sid’s hand and rubs his eyes. “Work?”

“Yeah? I never ask, I’m sorry.”

“Is not so interesting.”

“I still want to hear about it.”

Geno gets up on one elbow, propping his head on his hand. “First I help lots of people with plants. So many think about what color they want, not how much they know. One lady get so mad at me—” Geno laughs “—she buy plant last week I tell her is difficult if you new to plants. Is already dead and she say is my fault.”

“Really? That’s rude.”

Geno shrugs, like it’s not a big deal to him. “Lot of people are in my job.”

“But you like your job?”

“Love it.” Geno scratches his chin. “Have fun every day, you know? My colleagues is family now. When I first come, I only have Seryozha, Sergei for you, and I find job and then I’m not so lonely.”

Smiling, Sid inches closer. “I’m glad to hear that.”

“Now I have you also.” Geno reaches out, stroking Sid’s hair from his forehead.

“You do.”

After that, things calm down slightly, but Sid still has interviews every day. The awards in Vegas will be the last of it, and then he can take some time off. Normally he’d go to Cole Harbour as soon as possible, but Geno still has work and, well, Sid doesn’t want to leave him alone when he’s the sole reason Sid has his third Stanley Cup.

“Would you be able to go to Canada with me for my birthday?” Sid asks over dinner one night, a couple of days before Vegas. He’s been home for a few hours before Geno, and grilled homemade burgers in the backyard.

“I see if I can take time off.” Geno sips his beer. “I promise colleagues we go out for my birthday, is week before, but I can come for few days.”

Oh shit. Geno’s birthday. Sid should know when that is, but he’s had no clue. “What date is your birthday?”

“Last of July.” Geno takes a bite of his burger and hums happily. “This great! You want me at awards?”

“I’d love to have you there, but only if you have the time.”

“No work for three days.”

“Sounds like we have a three day trip to Vegas.”

“At least we can’t marry stranger when he drunk.” Geno grins. “We already do, but no alcohol for blame.”

Sid snorts into his beer. “It _was_ a bit of a rushed decision.”

Pinching his fingers together, Geno says: “Only little bit.”

In Vegas, Geno sits next to him in the audience and squeezes Sid’s hand when his award is presented. He cheers with the crowd, pressing a kiss to Sid’s cheek when he gets up to accept the trophy. Sid thanks his team, his family, and Geno. Not to keep the charade, but because Geno is, literally, the reason Sid can stand up here and give a speech.

When he comes back to his seat, Geno presses a chaste kiss to his lips. “So proud.”

Flower seeks them out in the crowd afterwards. It’s bittersweet now, when Sid knows they’re no longer on the same team, but it’s not a goodbye and he has to stop seeing it as such.

He ignores Sid in favor of hugging Geno. “Are you having fun?”

“Is little bit boring,” Geno stage-whispers. “Not tell Sid.”

“Make him buy you a fancy dinner as thanks. These awards are always so boring.” Flower slings an arm over Geno’s shoulders, which looks funny, because he’s several inches shorter. “But you know what’s fun?”

“You do prank?”

So maybe Sid told him about Flower’s habit to prank everyone just a couple of days earlier.

“Always, but that’s not what I’m referring to. What’s fun is you and me rocking it at the weddings this summer.”

“You not do with Sid?” Geno asks, but he’s looking at Sid, grinning as though he already knows the answer.

“Are you kidding? He’s built like a fridge, he can’t dance.”

Rolling his eyes, Sid turns his back to them to find someone else to talk to. Flower isn’t incorrect, but he doesn’t need to know that. He ignores them in favor of Scarlett, Estelle and Vero.

He takes Geno out to dinner that night, just like Flower suggested, but instead of celebrating his award, all he can think of is how good Geno looks in his suit. Sid hasn’t gotten laid in a long time now, a couple of weeks before his concussion, and he’s starting to notice. He wakes up hard most mornings, and he jerks off when Geno is at work, but he can’t keep track of Geno’s schedule so it’s always rushed in the shower.

If he had married someone less attractive, maybe this wouldn’t be such an issue for him. He wakes sometimes in the middle of the night, having migrated closer to Geno, as if craving his closeness. Kissing doesn’t necessarily mean that Geno is up for anything more, but if this continues, Sid’s going to have to ask. If only to get the idea out of his head. He saw a glimpse of Geno’s dick the other day, when he came out of the shower, and hasn’t been able to stop thinking about it since.

“Sid?”

Blinking back to reality, he finds Geno frowning at him over his wine.

“Sorry, what?”

“Just ask if you like your food.”

It takes a second before Sid remembers that he’s eating steak. “It’s good.”

“You haven’t touched.” Geno tilts his head to the side. “You okay?”

This is not the place for the talk Sid wants to have. Asking your husband if he wants to be fuckbuddies is just...not a conversation he thought would ever happen.

“I’m just tired, sorry.” He cuts a piece of his steak and tries it. “It’s good.”

“Has been long days for you past weeks,” Geno says and then flags down the waiter to get Sid more wine. “Should sleep in tomorrow and then take week off when we get home.”

“Maybe we should order room service and eat breakfast in bed tomorrow,” Sid suggests. He can imagine worse mornings, but during the season he’s on a strict diet and after winning, his mornings have consisted of sleeping off his hangover or stressing away to another interview. Not that he’s unhappy with that, it’s a luxury he wasn’t sure he’d ever relive again, but it’s been forever since he spent the morning in bed with someone else.

Geno smiles over his own glass of wine. “Okay, yes.”

Sid stares at his wedding ring, the light from the candles catching in the side-set diamonds on Geno’s ring, and then he smiles back. “Great.”

Later, he falls asleep to Geno laughing at whatever he’s watching on TV and he feels so full.

It’s strange building new routines with someone that don’t stem from dating, turned into spending the night, turned into moving in, where you find each other in your everyday lives step by step. But they eat dinner together every day they can, and Geno likes to read in bed before he falls asleep, whereas Sid prefers reading on the couch when Geno watches TV.

He finds Geno more often than not being frustrated in the backyard by his plants not growing the way he wants them to.

“Is weather,” Geno explains. “Is fickle, you know? Can’t know what to expect.”

The plants look fine to Sid, where he’s grilling salmon for their dinner, but mostly watching Geno walking around with a watering can.

“What do you do at work then? To keep the plants well.”

“We have greenhouse,” Geno sighs.

“Greenhouses help?” Sid asks, squeezing lime over the salmon.

“They best thing.”

Sid drives Geno to work the next morning—his car has broken down again—and then goes over to Tanger.

“Where can I buy a greenhouse?” Sid asks Cath as he plays ministicks with Alex.

“A greenhouse?” she echoes.

“Why won’t you ask me that?” Tanger protests.

Neither of them bothers with replying to him. “I need one for Geno for his birthday. He loves plants.”

Out of the corner of his eye, he can see Tanger mouth _he loves plants_ to Cath, as though Geno is an alien. Cath rolls her eyes and ignores him.

“That’s a great idea,” she says. “I’ll find you the name of the company where we got our tiny one. I figure you’d want something bigger, but they can custom make one for you probably.”

“I only have about a month,” Sid sighs and Cath smiles.

“No, you have one month to make your own gift card and present the idea to him. If you build it before his birthday, he’s going to know and it won’t be a surprise.”

That could work. It’s better than any other idea he has so far. He’s going to cook Geno a nice fucking dinner and give him a picture of the greenhouse. Had their relationship been different, he’d give Geno the blowjob of his life, too. The guys on the team like to tease him for his mouth, but Sid doesn’t tell them that he knows what to do with it too.

Fuck, he misses giving head. He wants to laugh at himself, but he’s around people, so he concentrates on helping Tanger prepare lunch instead.

*

They check Geno’s work schedule with the weddings they’re invited to. It doesn’t match completely, but Sid is relieved that he will have company to the majority of them. He doesn’t think too much about it, until one evening when Geno stands in the kitchen, clearly waiting for him to come home. 

“Something wrong?” Sid asks and opens the fridge to put away the milk he bought on the way. Fedor trots up to him, curiously eyeing the contents.

Geno doesn’t reply. When Sid closes the fridge again, carefully moving Fedor out of the way with his foot, he turns around and finds Geno biting his lip, looking awfully uncomfortable. Sid has never seen him like this. Did Geno slip up? Did he fuck someone else?

“What’s wrong?” Sid asks again, his scalp prickling.

“Hate this,” Geno says and shakes his head.

Sid’s stomach sinks. “Do you want to get a divorce?”

“What?” Geno frowns at him, his uncomfortable expression gone. “No, I’m not want divorce?”

“Then what’s wrong?” Sid presses. He’s not prone to anxiety, exactly, but he can’t figure out what’s going on here.

“I need new suit,” Geno says, his voice so quiet that Sid can barely hear him.

He almost replies with _so?_ until he remembers that Geno hates when he needs material things from Sid.

“Sure,” he says instead, making his voice as casual as possible. “Do you want Tanger to go with you?”

Geno nods, but he doesn’t show the sense of relief that Sid hoped for. “Yes, he good at this.”

“I can get you your own card,” Sid says then, as it dawns on him that maybe it’s the act of asking for something that’s also difficult for Geno. “So you won’t have to ask me next time. I want you to get a new suit or new clothes if that’s what you need. You don’t have to ask for permission.”

Geno sets his jaw. “Is not my money, have to ask.”

“You can just tell me that you’re going to buy it, if you want,” Sid offers. “We’re married, I can’t...I don’t want you to have to ask for things that you need. I figure you need a card anyway, for groceries and stuff.”

“I work,” Geno snaps, his shoulders inching up towards his ears.

“I know that.” Sid takes a mental breath to calm himself. “I know that, and I think that’s important. I would never want you to quit. But you buy food for me too, when we don’t get it delivered, and I eat a lot. It’s only fair that I pay for it, especially since you grow stuff on your own and share it with me.”

Geno is not convinced. His entire being radiates discomfort with this topic. Sid would’ve dropped it if Geno wasn’t the one to bring it up.

Sitting down on a barstool by the counter, Sid sighs. Fedor jumps up on his lap a second later, head-butting his hand until he gets pets. It’s nice keeping his hands occupied with something, and Fedor’s purrs makes this less tense. “I know it’s difficult for you, and I respect that. I know you want to be independent and I’m definitely not trying to buy you, or suggest that you quit your job. That’s the last thing I want. I just...I don’t want my life to be a burden for you, and I feel like that’s what it is now. It’s causing you a lot of discomfort.”

“I’m not follow.”

“You wouldn’t need new suits or new clothes if it wasn’t for me. It doesn’t seem fair to me that you should spend a lot of your money on things that you wouldn’t need if you were married to someone else. I want to pay for that.” Sid takes a breath. “Sometimes I’d like to give you things. Maybe they’ll be more expensive than the kitchen magnets. That won’t mean you owe me anything, _ever_ , it just means that I saw something I wanted to give to you.”

The silence stretches long between them and Geno watches him with a thoughtful expression on his face.

“Is important to you?”

“To give you things?” Sid shrugs. “Not the material side of it, no, but I like to show people that I think of them, or take care of them when I can. I’ll miss a lot of things because of hockey, you know. Anniversaries, Valentine’s Days, Christmases…”

It doesn’t matter that they didn’t get married for love. He’s still going to miss all of those things for at least half a dozen years, maybe another decade if he’s lucky, and…

“Only for important days,” Geno says and interrupts his train of thought. “You can’t give me new car every week.”

“I won’t do that.” Sid bites his lip. “I’d still like to give you your own card so you don’t have to ask me for permission when you need something, is that okay?”

Geno hesitates again, before he nods. “But I still tell you after I buy.”

“Deal,” Sid says, smiling slightly.

“You not give me new car for my birthday,” Geno warns.

“I won’t, I promise.” Sid holds his hands up in defeat. “I’ve already planned something else.”

Side-eyeing him, Geno mutters something under his breath that Sid can’t catch, before he says: “You make dinner, have to take care of plants.”

And in all fairness, Sid’s house now contains so many living plants, and his garden has now come to life, that it takes Geno the same amount of time to take care of them all as it does for Sid to make pasta carbonara.

Geno wears his new suit to the first wedding of the summer and Sid can’t stop looking at him. It’s dark navy, just like Sid’s own, matched with a floral tie—very unlike Sid’s own.

“I look okay?” Geno asks when he catches Sid looking _again_ as they’re waiting for the bride and groom to show up, after the ceremony.

“You look more than okay,” Sid says, lowering his voice, because he doesn’t want to get shit from any of the guys later. “Actually, you look really hot.”

This time, when Geno’s gaze darkens and a shiver runs down Sid’s pine, it’s not out of fear. Geno doesn’t have a chance to reply, before Shearsy and Jordan show up.

The best part about the wedding tour during the summer is that he can catch up with the guys that aren’t on his team, and put hockey to the side. The season is over and their rivalries are shelved for the time being.

They sit together at dinner, and Geno talks a lot to Radulov who’s also at their table. There’s a lot of Russian that Sid doesn’t follow, but Geno is vibrant in a way he hasn’t seen before. Apparently he’s also hilarious, because he has Radulov crying from laughter more than once. They try to explain their jokes to Sid several times, but it never quite translates, and Geno looks guilty whenever he can’t find the right word in English for his translations.

Sid lets them be, and talks to Jamie Benn instead. They don’t have much in common except for hockey, but that works for him. He’ll keep conversing with Benn for as long as Geno wants to talk to Radulov. Every now and then, Geno strokes his thigh under the table, so maybe he knows that Sid is staying out of their conversation because he’s trying to be nice, and not because he isn’t interested in what they’re talking about.

He finds guys from his own team after dinner and sits with them for drinks, when Geno and Radulov conquer the dance floor.

“Maybe you should take after him,” Shearsy says and points at Geno with the lime slice from his glass, before he puts it in his mouth.

“And have you guys put it all over the internet?” Sid snorts. “No thanks.”

Shearsy turns to Dumo with a tired expression on his face. “ _The Internet_ , he says, as though he’s a hundred years old.”

“It’s Instagram,” Dumo says and pulls his phone from his pocket, he holds it up to Sid and speaks very slowly. “It’s in your _phone_.”

“Oh fuck you.” He’s fine being teased for being one of the old guys, and social media has never been anything he’s had any interest in. But he can’t openly agree with them.

“If he had his way, we’d watch tape on projector slides,” Rusty stage whispers to the rest of them.

Sid is just about to reply, when a heavy, familiar hand lands on his shoulder.

“You not come dance?” Geno asks, a little out of breath. His cheeks are flushed and he discards his suit jacket, hanging it over the back of Sid’s chair.

“God no, no one wants to see that.” Sid shakes his head and allows Geno to take his glass and steal a sip, before pressing a kiss to his temple and disappearing onto the dance floor again.

“Wow, you’re _so_ married,” Shearsy comments.

They don’t leave until two-thirty a.m. and they’re still some of the first to go back to their room. Geno’s arm is heavy around his shoulders, and he sticks close the short walk to the elevators. Their room is too hot and Sid cracks the windows open while Geno brushes his teeth in the bathroom. He breathes in the soft, cool breeze that sweeps into the room. It's been a good night.

When Geno comes back out, he’s naked and clearly unbothered that Sid is here with him. It’s not the first time—Geno isn’t one to cover up just because Sid’s around, but it’s always been glimpses when Geno passes behind him in the bathroom to shower, as Sid brushes his teeth. Or when Sid is still in bed in the mornings and Geno goes from the bathroom to the closet to change into his work clothes.

Now he takes his time to hang up his suit properly before bed, and Sid can’t stop himself from looking. He’s all long limbs, with a slight softness to his belly and a pert curve to his ass. Sid diverts his gaze when it lingers on Geno’s dick, heavy and soft between his legs, and wishes the room was cooler.

Thankfully, Geno is out before Sid is even in bed, snoring softly. He’s quite sure he can hear the sound of people fucking in the next room. Fuck, if that could be him right now, being loud enough to keep other people awake? He’d give a lot for that.

The next wedding is more of the same, only this time Geno talks a lot to Gonch and his wife. Sid keeps conversation with Angela Price instead, to give them enough space to speak Russian if they want to. It’s not like Geno can do that at home, and Sid wants him to feel comfortable and at ease.

“I can’t believe we weren’t invited to your wedding,” Angela scolds.

“Barely anyone was.” Sid knows that a lot of people are genuinely upset by this, but Angela is at least half-joking. “Just the people closest to us. It was a bit rushed. After my concussion I got it in my head that I wanted to get married _now_ , and we did. Neither of us are really comfortable with grand celebrations anyway.”

“I’m just kidding.” Angela waves him off and then nods towards Geno. “I’m really happy for you. He’s quite the charmer.”

Glancing over, Geno is discussing something so animatedly that he almost knocks his glass over several times and Gonch is so invested that he doesn’t seem to notice that Ksenia finishes his plate for him. Sid reaches over and moves the glass out of reach, and exchanges a look with Ksenia over the table. She turns her eyes heavenward and steals the last olive from Gonch’s plate with a toothpick, and laughs when Geno lets out a noise of hopeless frustration.

Sid smiles, turning back to Angela. “He is, isn’t he?”

She has a soft expression on her face.

“I’m so happy for you,” she says once more. 

Geno is on the dance floor again, and Sid has drinks with some of the other guys who aren’t so keen on busting their moves. How does he bring up to Geno that he’d like for them to have sex, without making Geno feel like he has to? Even if he says no, Sid is going to keep his part of the deal, but Geno can’t ever know that for certain. The last thing he wants is for Geno to feel pressured.

He gets kisses, though. When Geno comes by the table to get a drink, he surprises Sid by bending down and kissing him so deep that the guys start wolf whistling. Geno smirks and leaves as quickly as he showed up. Sid is out of breath for a good fifteen minutes.

The third wedding of the summer is one he goes to alone. Geno is working double shifts, and he doesn’t have a chance to get away. Sid leaves the party earlier than he normally would, but he planned his one night away from Geno carefully. He showers and then digs out the toys he brought with him, hidden away in a soft silk bag. It’s not that he’s embarrassed of his toys—they’re normally stocked in the drawer of his bedside table—but he takes good care of them. Plus, Fedor likes to investigate his suitcases while he’s packing, and he didn’t feel like advertising his plans to Geno.

He spends a long time slowly fingering himself, getting used to it again after sticking to efficiently jerking off in the shower for so long. The stretch of the toy makes his toes curl, even though it’s normally not big enough for him to get spine-meltingly satisfied. But it’s been a while and he just wants to get fucked.

It doesn’t take long before he gives in and pretends it’s Geno fucking him. Maybe Geno would fuck him so good that Sid wouldn’t be able to keep quiet. Sid would come on his dick and then let Geno make a complete mess out of him.

Afterwards, he’s catching his breath and staring at the ceiling. Maybe he should ask Geno for a more specific work schedule. It’s been too long since he spent time fucking himself, and it helps a lot with his sexual frustration.

It’s not as satisfying as sex with another human being, but if Geno isn’t up for that, Sid can definitely make do with this and be perfectly fine.

After cleaning up, he checks his phone. There’s a message from Geno waiting for him:

**> I hope you have fun at wedding. House is empty tonight. :( Fedor miss you too. **

Then there are a few photos attached. The first one is of Fedor who’s lying on Sid’s pillow, looking less than happy with life. The next one is of Geno’s dinner; leftover chicken that Sid grilled the other day, and a big plate of salad. The last one is a selfie of Geno. He’s lying in bed, hair sticking up in various directions, and Fedor has curled up against his cheek. Geno is smiling at the camera, but he’s clearly tired after a long day at work.

 **< Miss you too** , Sid writes back. **It’s strange sleeping without you. Goodnight!**

He looks at the picture of Geno again, sighing to himself. He’s going to have to talk to Geno soon enough. If Geno isn’t interested in having sex, Sid can move on and if he is...well, he’ll save those thoughts for later.

Being honest with Geno is a must. He can’t picture himself in a marriage ten years from now, being some kind of happy, if he’s keeping things from Geno. That doesn’t mean he expects Geno to want the same things he does. In fact, he’s quite sure that Geno isn’t interested in sex. He’s never even mentioned being interested in men to begin with.

He waits until Geno gets off just before dinner one evening, and has the opening shift the next morning. Mostly because it’ll give them both a natural break after their talk if things go badly.

Spending the afternoon cooking, Sid then sets the table in the dining room. He decides against wine—this conversation is best held sober. And waits. When the sound of the engine to Geno’s pickup truck reaches him, his pulse kickstarts the same way it does just before he takes the ice for an important game.

“I’m home,” comes Geno’s voice a moment later, and the slam of the door to the garage behind him.

“Dinner’s ready!” Sid calls back and lifts the lid of the pan where he’s kept the risotto warm. When he looks up, Geno is in the doorway, watching him.

“I come home to favorite meal on regular Wednesday?” he asks, clearly perplexed and smiling.

“I had time.” Sid shrugs and sits down as Geno approaches the table. It’s not a bribe. Hopefully Geno will know that.

He asks Geno the usual questions about his day—the ones they sometimes talk about in bed, or over dinner or lunch, depending on when Geno gets off work—and laughs at the stories Geno tells him. He’s so animated, gesticulating with enough feeling that Sid can’t help but listen. He almost forgets the most important topic of their dinner, until Geno scoots his chair back and sighs.

“So full.”

“You’ve worked all day, you need food.”

“I eat lunch,” Geno points out.

“You can bring some leftovers tomorrow if you want?”

Geno looks longingly at the risotto that still remains in the pan. “Best.”

Then, as though he can sense that Sid is waiting for the right moment, he straightens up and nails Sid to the spot with his gaze.

“What you want to talk about?”

“That obvious, eh?” Shit, where does he begin? He’s had these kind of conversations before, but it’s often in reverse: wanting to make a casual agreement less so.

“Since I come home.”

“Right, sorry, I should’ve said something right away.”

“Sometimes we need little bit of time.” Geno tilts his head to the side, waiting.

“First, I want to make sure that you know that I don’t expect anything from you. There will be no consequences if you say no. I won’t hold it against you and I won’t go back on our deal. Okay?”

Geno frowns, but after a moment of hesitation he nods.

“I have no way of building up to the question I want to ask, so I’m just going to say it, alright?”

Geno shrugs and gestures with his hands to the centre of the table, as if saying: put it out there.

Counting to three mentally, Sid locks eyes with him more firmly. “I’d like to have sex with you, if that’s something you want. I’m attracted to you, and having sex with someone else when we’re married is not an option for me. I won’t do that even if you say no, obviously. You can always say no, now or later.”

Geno blinks and opens his mouth, before closing it again. Whatever he expected Sid to bring up, this clearly wasn’t it. He stares at Sid in silence for a while, before he finally says: “You want sex?”

“Yes, but only if you want that too.”

There’s a long silence again, and Geno breaks eye contact to stare at his hands. Sid has to say something.

“I don’t know if you’re even attracted to men,” he ventures. “It’s okay if you’re not. It’s okay if you are, but still not attracted to me. It just didn’t feel honest to want this and not tell you about it.”

“And if I’m not want?” Geno asks suddenly.

“Then we won’t.” Sid shrugs. “As I said, I won’t hold it against you and I won’t go back on our deal. I mean that. I’m very much _not_ into having sex with you if you don’t want it.”

Geno bites the inside of his cheek, his shoulders square and his posture rigid.

“You don’t have to answer now,” Sid tries, because it’s obvious what Geno wants to say and that he really isn’t comfortable giving that answer here and now. “You can think about it, and I won’t ask again unless you bring it up. I didn’t mean to make you uncomfortable. I’m sorry.”

That softens Geno’s expression and he nods. “I think about and let you know when I decide.”

“Sure.” Sid looks down at their dirty plates and empty glasses. “Go ahead and go upstairs. I know you want to shower after work. I’ll clean up.”

“I can do,” Geno protests. “You make dinner.”

“It’s fine.” Sid shakes his head and reaches across the table for Geno’s plate. “I don’t mind. You have work tomorrow and I don’t have to be at the gym until noon.”

Nothing is out of the ordinary, but it feels like it is. Geno is asleep when Sid comes upstairs a while later. Normally, he wouldn’t think twice about it, since Geno has to get up early in the morning. Tonight, he can’t help but think that Geno is avoiding him.

Maybe this was a mistake. The idea of Geno being uncomfortable around him is nauseating. He’ll back off for a while, give Geno whatever space he needs, and maybe they can talk this out later, before forgetting all about it.

He lies on his side, looking at Geno’s back for a while, before he rolls over too. It’ll be okay somehow. It has to be.

Things are...somewhat weird over the next few days. They say and do all the same things they normally would, but there’s an angularity between them that hasn’t been there since the first time they met. Sid tries to give Geno as much space as he can, without actively avoiding him.

They eat dinner together, go to bed together, talk about Geno’s work and Sid’s training. But Geno is distant in a foreign way and Sid doesn’t know if he should bring it up or let it be. He did promise to leave it until Geno says something, and even though it’s against his instinct, he’ll keep his word.

Going to a wedding is not ideal in their current situation, but they have to anyway. It’s smaller this time, at a vineyard in New Jersey, and about a hundred guests, which is small in comparison to the other weddings he’s been to this summer.

Tonight, Geno sticks close to him, as though he realizes that people will ask if they act uncomfortable around each other. He’s warm against Sid’s side, with an arm draped over his shoulders or a hand on the small of his back, and Sid has missed this. It doesn’t matter that this was all so very new even before it stopped.

He breathes in Geno’s scent and is less than ideal company to the rest of their table. After dinner, when he’s eaten too much and has been sitting for too long, he nudges Geno’s side.

“I’m going to go for a walk, stretch my legs a bit.”

To his surprise, Geno gets up from his chair right away. “I come with.”

“If you want to.” Sid doesn’t mind the company, but Geno doesn’t have to babysit him. “I’m fine on my own if you’d rather sit here.”

Geno hesitates, but then he shakes his head. “I come.”

There’s a lit path on the property, slowly twisting between fields of grapes and buildings. They walk in silence, and after a while the sound from the party fades to a happy background noise.

“Are you angry with me?” Geno asks then.

Surprised, Sid looks up and searches Geno’s face. He seems about as uncomfortable as he was when he asked for a new suit.

“No,” Sid says. “Why would I be angry with you?”

“You avoid me.” Geno shrugs. “I worry I hurt you.”

“I was trying to give you space.” Sid pauses by a bench. “Do you want to sit down for a while? Talk?”

“Okay, yes.”

Their legs knock together and Sid looks out over the field in front of them. Is it even called a field? Either way, it's beautiful against the star scattered sky.

“I’m sorry for making you feel like I was avoiding you,” he begins and tries to sort his head out. “I was trying to give you space. I didn’t want to make you feel pushed or cornered after bringing up something like that. I realized it wasn’t at all something you expected.”

“Very surprised,” Geno agrees. “Maybe last thing I expect you ask.”

“I’m sorry,” Sid says again. He’s usually quite good at noticing when someone’s attracted to him, but with Geno he’s read the clues all wrong, apparently.

“Why sorry?”

“It wasn’t fair of me to put you in that position. I shouldn’t have asked that.”

Geno is quiet for a long while, and Sid listens to the sound of his breathing. “You regret?”

“Regret what? Asking?”

Geno nods.

“I regret making you uncomfortable, yes.” Sid sighs. “I don’t regret being honest, though. I could’ve dealt with it better.”

“I think I’m only one who want,” Geno says suddenly and Sid has to turns towards him to make sure his ears aren’t fooling him. “Then you ask and I’m so surprise, and I start worry that maybe is bad idea. What if it make things more complicate, you know? Is already complicate enough.”

“That’s true.” Sid has a hard time comprehending what Geno is telling him right now. Does this mean yes or no?

“But is even worse now when we weird around each other.” Geno knocks his legs against Sid’s.

“What are you saying?”

Geno huffs out a laugh. “You going to make me say it?”

“I had to say it,” Sid points out.

“If you still want, I’m want sex too.” Geno takes a slow breath. “I want for some time, but I never dare to ask. You much more brave.”

Sid looks at him, how he’s side-lit from the lanterns around them. Maybe this really is stupid and maybe it will complicate things, just like Geno fears, but if it’s something they both want, then they can deal with whatever comes up later.

“Are you sure?”

“Yes.” Geno nods. “I know you worry that I only say this because we uneven, you know? I do my part of deal already, and you can change mind. But I know you won’t. Maybe I can’t read mind, but I’m good at read hearts. I know you would never put me in difficult position. I know you never want me for do something I’m not want. So I won’t.”

His heart picks up its pace. Heat spreads over his skin and Sid bites his lip. “If you ever change how you feel about this, I want you to tell me. And I’ll do the same.”

“Promise.”

They stare at each other for a while until Geno laughs.

“What?” Sid prompts.

“I’m not sure how we continue after this conversation,” Geno says and scrubs a hand over his hair. “Do we go back to party and continue like we do before?”

Sid smiles, shrugging as he gets up from the bench. “At least until we go back to our room.”

His smile turns smug when he hears Geno suck in a breath behind him. He turns, semi-successful in keeping a straight face. “Are you coming?”

The rest of the night is more like the weddings they’ve gone to before, where Geno takes the dance floor and Sid finds a table with people he knows better—now that he’s finished the polite rounds of small talk for the evening—and hangs out. He drinks less than he usually would because he wants a clear head for later. Wants to remember every second of it, and make sure Geno is in for something he won’t forget for some time.

He’s at the bar, getting a glass of water, when a pair of familiar hands lands on his waist.

“Are you having fun?” he asks over his shoulder.

Geno moves in closer, pressing his front against Sid’s back, and his breath is hot against Sid’s ear.

“Yes, but I think we go to room now?”

Sid’s gut tightens. “What if I’m not done yet?”

One of Geno’s hands slip from his waist to his stomach, sliding down towards his crotch. The bartender can’t see from behind the bar, but there are a lot of other people around.

“What you need for be finished?” Geno asks.

While Sid very much likes teasing him, it’s probably better done in private at this point. “Get my jacket and I’ll finish my drink.”

Geno disappears immediately and Sid downs his glass of water the moment the bartender hands it to him. Having sex with someone for the first time is a mixed experience of excitement and not knowing what to expect. They’ve never talked about this. Has Geno had sex with other men? Will he prefer fucking Sid or the other way around?

He’s effectively pulled from his thoughts when Geno show up with Sid’s suit jacket over his arm. He’s flushed, maybe from dancing, and his hair is a little wild.

“We go?” he asks, jerking his head towards the lodging.

Slipping an arm around Geno’s waist, Sid nods and they make the short walk in silence. Geno’s fingers skim the sensitive skin on his neck and throat, and has to bite his lip to keep himself from slipping his hand down the back of Geno’s pants.

The tension and anticipation seem to redouble when Sid locks the door to their room behind them. He looks at Geno, who’s watching him with dark eyes and a thrill runs down Sid’s spine.

“Do you want to fuck me?” Sid asks and he’s rapidly getting hard.

Geno steps in close to him, pressing him up against the door and Sid has to crane his neck to look Geno in the eyes. Spreading his legs a little, he lets Geno press a thigh against his crotch.

“You want?”

“I wouldn’t ask if I didn’t want it.”

Geno kisses him then, hard and filthy, and Sid doesn’t have to doubt that he wants this too. They kiss until Sid’s mouth is swollen and sore, and he’s riding Geno’s thigh to get some friction.

“Did you bring stuff?” he asks between sucking kisses to Geno’s throat.

“Only lube.”

Sid is beyond meticulous with using condoms for casual hookups, but Geno is his husband, and would never put him at risk.

“I’m clean,” Geno tells him, his voice hoarse. “Can show you paper when we home.”

“I trust you.” Sid kisses him again and then pushes him away. “But I’m not gonna let you fuck me against the door. Come on.”

Undressing Geno is discovering something he’s seen so many times like it’s uncharted territory. He kisses the dips underneath Geno’s collarbones and strokes the softness of his stomach, making Geno squirm. When Sid gets a hand on his dick, the head shiny with precome, he sighs as if relieved. He’s even bigger than Sid thought, the girth makes his mouth water and his own dick twitches in his pants. Geno’s going to fill him so good.

“I’m gonna ride you,” he says, not looking up from where he’s stroking Geno’s dick. “Get on the bed.”

Geno does as he’s told, watching Sid undress with a heavy gaze while he’s stroking himself leizuredly. For a second, Sid thinks about blowing him first, but he’s too impatient, desperate after going without sex for so long.

Getting the lube from Geno’s bag, he climbs onto the bed and kisses Geno again, straddling him. Geno squeezes his thighs, and then strokes upwards, until he has his hands on Sid’s ass.

“So big,” he marvels, pulling Sid’s ass cheeks apart as far as they go, pressing a dry fingertip to his hole, making Sid gasp. “I get you ready.”

Geno takes the lube from him, pouring maybe a little too much into his hand, and adds under his breath: “Make you wet.”

Sid’s dick twitches and he lets out a shuddering breath. “Just get it in me.”

Geno starts out slow, but Sid is impatient, urging him on by pushing back over Geno’s fingers and arching his back to get them just right. Groaning, he thumbs his nipples and then reaches for his own dick, stroking himself just once.

“Want more?” Geno asks with two fingers buried in Sid’s ass.

Sid nods, drops of sweat running down his spine, and then he digs his fingers into Geno’s chest as Geno pulls his fingers back and pushes in with three. Groaning, Sid can feel his dick drip down on Geno’s stomach and he rolls his hips back, trying to get Geno’s fingers deeper.

“Look so good,” Geno tells him and grazes one of Sid’s nipples with his thumb nail, making him gasp. “You going to fuck yourself on my cock?”

“Yeah,” Sid groans and when Geno rubs his fingers over his prostate, he has to grab the base of his dick to keep himself from coming. “Fuck G, come on.”

Geno fingers him just right until Sid has to bat his hand away, or he’d come before he’ll even get Geno’s dick in him.

“Is enough?” Geno asks, looking smug, and wipes his fingers on the sheets.

“You’re not that big,” Sid lies, but Geno just rolls his eyes and covers his own dick with lube, so Sid can get his body under control again. He steadies Sid’s with hands on his hips as he positions himself, and the head of Geno’s dick feels impossibly huge. Licking his lips, Sid presses down, wishing he could go faster. _Fuck, it’s so good._

He goes slow, taking a little more every time he sinks down on Geno’s dick again. The stretch makes him tremble. He won’t last long, but the way Geno’s fingers dig into his hips, he won’t either.

“Fuck,” Geno groans and grits his teeth, when Sid is finally fully seated in his lap. “Come on, baby.”

He takes Geno deep, grinding his hips the way he likes it best, and he’s louder than he should be with other people so close by. But fuck, they can hear all they want. And for a while it’s just Sid chasing his relief, his muscles straining and heat pooling low in his stomach. All it takes is Geno to put a hand around his dick to make him come, and Sid chokes down a shout. He only barely manages to keep himself from collapsing, as Geno pushes into him a few more times, and then comes too.

Sid rests his head on Geno’s shoulder, only half-listening to the sweet-sounding Russian Geno is whispering, and catching his breath. Too soon, he straightens up and moves off Geno, not wanting to crush him with his weight. His plan is to go and clean up, but Geno slips a hand down his ass, gently circling his hole, before he slips a finger in. Sid flushes at how easily it goes in, he’s so loose and wet from lube and come. Just like Geno promised him.

“We’re too old to go again,” Sid groans, borderline too-sensitive when Geno skirts his prostate. But he wishes he could.

Geno snorts and slides his finger out, pulling Sid down for a kiss. “Was so good,” he whispers against Sid’s lips.

“Yeah,” Sid says and kisses him back a little harder. “I want you to fuck my mouth in the morning.”

“Sid,” Geno groans and Sid grins.

He does fuck Sid’s mouth in the morning, and comes all over his face.

*

Sid drives Geno to work four days in a row until Geno finally sighs and says:

“I think I need new car.”

It’s not that Sid minds driving Geno to work when he’s home anyway, but it’s the worry that Geno is going to get stuck somewhere and be unable to get home if his piece of crap car gives up again (Geno’s words, not Sid’s).

“Okay,” Sid says, careful to keep his voice even. “If you want, I can get in contact with my leasing company and ask them for a good deal for you?”

Geno is silent for a long while, before he nods. “Okay, yes. Need big car, for plants.”

“I know.” Smiling, Sid reaches into the backseat and grabs the bag with Geno’s lunch box. “I’ll look into something and we can go over the options together, okay?”

“Okay, sound good,” Geno agrees. His gaze falls to Sid’s mouth and for a second, Sid thinks he’s going to lean in for a kiss goodbye, but instead Geno smiles and takes his bag with the lunch box. “I get off eight.”

“I’ll be here.”

“If you early, can come in say hi to plants and colleagues.”

It’s only fair, Geno has spent a lot of time around Sid’s team which is basically the same as colleagues.

“For sure.”

He spends his day working out and lazing with Fedor on the couch. The leftovers from lunch are packed away for Geno to bring with him to work tomorrow, he has a list of car options for Geno prepared, and he’s on the phone with the company delivering the greenhouse. It’s empty without Geno here.

The flax flowers seem to have turned up in water-filled glass bottles in random windows, and rooms. He finds random stones and rocks in nooks and corners when he looks for them—small and easy to overlook. How long have they been here?

His spine tenses as he reaches out towards one of them—a multicolored one, almost like a rainbow, lying barely visible behind a pot in the window next to the front door—as though his body knows not to touch it. He pulls his hand back, shoving it into the pocket of his sweats. He should ask Geno about them, and what they do. They must do something—since they’re hidden they’re not for decoration.

When he goes to pick up Geno from work, he can’t shake the feeling of someone watching him the entire ride there. But the cars behind him vary and no one pulls into the parking lot outside of Geno’s work after him. Still, the feeling doesn’t go away until he’s walked through the glass doors.

It’s warm in there, humid, and filled with plants. The girl who’s building the shopping baskets into a tower says:

“Sorry, we’re closed. Come back tomorrow at—” But then she looks up and her eyes grow big. “Oh, sorry Mr. Crosby. Geno is in the back, it’s through the doors over there, you can go if you want.”

Sid smiles. “Thank you.”

A few other employees, wearing the same trademark red polo shirts with the company logo on the back as Geno wears for work, look up and open their mouths—probably to tell him the same thing the first girl told him, but they all know who he is.

When he finds Geno, he’s murmuring to the plant he’s picking dead leaves from. It’s...strangely endearing.

“Hey,” Sid says, making himself known. He expects Geno to be embarrassed for being caught speaking to a plant, but instead Geno looks up and keeps talking to it for another moment, before he says:

“You early.”

Shrugging, Sid sticks his hands in his jeans pockets. “I misjudged the traffic.”

“They give you hard time out there?” Geno tips his head towards the door Sid just walked through.

“No, I think they were surprised to see me.”

“I tell them you worst at plants, only have plastic or cactus when I move in. Of course they surprise, only living plants here.” Geno grins, tongue sticking out between his teeth.

“Shut up.” Sid tries to sound annoyed, but he can’t quite hide his smile.

“You help,” Geno says and holds out a watering can to Sid. “So we get home faster.”

Watering plants shouldn’t be too hard. But apparently it’s not as easy as pouring water in the pots. Geno explains the process of watering two different kinds, where one only wants a little, and the other prefers being drenched.

“How do you remember all of this?”

Geno shrugs. “Is easy. You remember Taylor lactose intolerant and Alex only like cucumber. Is same.”

“They’re people.”

He receives a not-so-subtle side-eye for that comment. “Plants are people also, Sid.”

Opening his mouth to protest, Sid spots one of Geno’s colleagues hesitating in the doorway. It’s the same girl he met when he first walked in here.

“Sorry to bother you, Mr. Crosby,” she says and glances over to Geno, who pretends to be occupied with the plants. Sid can tell that he’s listening though. “Would you mind signing something for me?”

“You sure you want?” Geno asks—definitely listening—and grins at Sid again. “He hate plants, Sarah. You want autograph of guy who hate plants?”

“I don’t hate plants,” Sid sighs. “I’d be happy to sign something for you.”

In the car later, when Sid has signed a various array of items—anything from the back of an old receipt to a pot he’s pretty sure one of them only cashed out because they needed something for him to sign—Geno turns towards him with a frown.

“Sorry, I’m not expect they ask for all that.”

“For what? That I’d sign stuff for them?” Sid takes left out of the parking lot and waits for a passing car.

“They know I marry you, but they promise to pretend they cool.”

Sid snorts out a laugh. “It was fine. I don’t mind.”

“Next time I forbid them. They only get to tease for hate plants.”

“I don’t hate plants!”

They have a slow evening. Sid lies on the couch, reading a book on the Cold War with his feet in Geno’s lap and Geno is going over his options for a car. He’s muttering under his breath, but after asking three times, Sid has accepted that Geno isn’t talking to him but is discussing something with himself.

He’s lost in his book when Geno’s hand slides up his calf and then the inside of his thigh.

“Did you decide on a car?” Sid asks without looking up, and hides his smile behind his book.

“No,” Geno mutters, his hand pausing tantalizingly close to where Sid wants it.

“Maybe you should do that first.”

Geno’s hand inches up further. “Maybe I need help with decide.”

“It’s your car.” But he does nothing to stop Geno from cupping him through his sweats. His breath speeds up as Geno slides down further on the couch, rucking up Sid’s shirt and kissing his stomach.

It’s not the first time Geno sucks his dick, but it’s the first time it’s the _only_ thing he does and not just a part of the foreplay.

Sid buries a hand on Geno’s hair and groans when Geno swallows him down. “Fuck, that’s so good.”

Geno pulls off just before Sid is about to come, and jerks him off, letting him stripe his own stomach. And then he pushes his own sweats down, and uses the come on Sid’s stomach to rub himself off.

Later, when they’ve cleaned themselves up with Sid’s t-shirt and are still catching their breath on the couch, Geno grabs the sheet of car suggestions and points to a modern pickup truck. “I decide on this one.”

“You needed sex to figure that out?” Sid says, grinning when Geno slaps his thigh.

“I need time to think about decision and was horny anyway.”

Sid pulls him down for a kiss and pulls his fingers through the hair at the nape of Geno’s neck. “Help me with dinner.”

*

The morning of Geno’s birthday, Sid wakes to the vibrating alarm on his watch. He rarely uses it, but he wants things to be as much of a surprise as they can be. Not that he has much to worry about; Geno takes at least thirty minutes to get out of bed in the morning and another thirty to get his personality back online.

Fedor weaves between his feet as he walks downstairs to the kitchen. The cake is hidden in a box at the back of the fridge, behind and underneath bottles of Gatorade. Geno doesn’t like them much so it was the safest bet.

Digging out the envelope with the photograph of the greenhouse from his junk drawer, Sid finds the only tray he owns and fills a thermos with coffee. It’s a balancing act to get it all upstairs, the porcelain mugs clinking together and the spoons for the cake making all kinds of noise.

Geno is still gone for the world, sleeping on his back with an arm over his eyes. There’s no way Sid is going to sing for him, so he disposes of the tray on Geno’s bedside table instead and kneels on the bed, leaning down to brush a kiss to his lips.

Geno lets out an unintelligible sound and blinks awake, staring up at Sid in confusion before he starts to smile.

“Good morning,” Sid says, smiling back. “Happy birthday.”

“Best,” Geno croaks, his accent is always thicker in the mornings, and reaches up to grope Sid’s ass. “Best birthday.”

“Don’t even think about it,” Sid laughs, even though he figures it’s very much up there among today’s plans if Geno still wants to fuck him later. “Other things first.”

Geno pouts, his hand staying on Sid’s ass. “Why so mean?”

Giving in just a fraction, Sid leans down and kisses him again, more properly this time. “Don’t you want cake?”

“You bring cake?” Geno looks around and when he spots the tray, his eyes widen. “You do for me?”

“Of course.” Climbing off the bed, Sid puts the tray next to Geno on the mattress. “It’s your birthday.”

Geno stares at the cake and the thermos, and then he strokes the edge of the envelope with a fingertip. “This for me?”

“Yeah.”

Dragging his eyes away from the tray, Geno meets his gaze then. There’s a look of awe on his face, his eyes big and his mouth cracked open a fraction. Sid’s ribcage contracts as realization dawns on him. Maybe it’s been a long time since anyone brought him cake for his birthday morning.

“Thank you,” Geno says, blinking rapidly and clearing his throat. “You want cake too, yes? Is not option to say no. Is my birthday, I decide.”

Sid snorts. “If you decide, then why do you ask?”

“Is polite.” And Geno proceeds to cut two huge pieces of cake, tipping them over on the plates and hands one to Sid. “You work out so much, you need little bit cake.”

He can have his cheat day today if Geno wants to share.

They kiss a lot, which is unusual for them. They tend to kiss at weddings and during sex, but Sid isn’t going to protest—Geno is a great kisser, and now he tastes of whipped cream and strawberries.

Then, finally, it’s just the envelope left.

“I can open?” Geno asks, his hand paused halfway.

“It’s for you,” Sid says, nodding.

“What is it?”

Rolling his eyes, Sid nudges him with an elbow. “You’ll have to open it to find out.”

“Expect I do so much,” Geno complains. “Eat cake, open gift. Most hard life.”

“I could always give it to someone else.”

“No, is mine.” Geno holds the envelope out of Sid’s reach, as though he would actually take it back and give it to a random stranger.

Sid watches, holding his breath, as Geno opens the envelope and pulls out the thick paper with the printed picture of the greenhouse on. Geno frowns, turning it over and then back again. His eyes track the few rows of text underneath the picture a few times, before he looks up at Sid with a frown.

“I’m not understand. It sound like you give me greenhouse.”

“Yeah,” Sid agrees. “That’s because I did.”

Geno’s eyes grow big again. “Is small? I can put in kitchen window?”

Shaking his head, Sid points at the described measurements on the homemade gift card. “No, they’ll build it in the backyard. You said the plants won’t grow properly, so I figured you’d need a greenhouse of your own.”

When Geno does nothing but stare at him, Sid starts to doubt his idea.

“Is it too much?” he tries. “I wanted to give you something you have use for.”

“Sid,” Geno breathes. “You give me greenhouse? My own greenhouse?”

Sid swallows. “...yeah.”

Geno gets up from the bed, the dirty plates clinking as he puts the tray on top of the dresser and then takes Sid’s coffee mug right out of his hand.

“Hey, what—” Sid begins, but then Geno pushes him back against the bed and kisses him hard.

Geno pulls back a fraction, his gaze hot. “Thank you.”

Then he kisses Sid again and spreads Sid’s legs, slotting himself between them. His dick is hard, pressing against Sid’s stomach and grinds up against him, digging his fingers into Geno’s back when he groans.

“Get the lube,” Sid says and shoves his underwear down when Geno reaches into the bedside table.

Geno fingers him with a familiar ease and Sid’s body is so easy for him now, relaxing willingly whenever Geno adds another finger. By now, he knows that Geno loves fucking him from behind, so he pushes Geno’s hand away when he’s ready and rolls over on his stomach, getting his legs under him, spread wide to give Geno a good view.

“Fuck,” Geno groans and palms Sid’s ass. “You want my cock, baby?”

Sid arches his back and nods. “Come on.”

Geno’s desperation hasn’t worn off, and he fucks Sid hard and deep. Putting his hands against the headboard to keep himself from sliding up the bed, Sid pushes back, his eyes rolling back when Geno gets him just right.

“Fuck, right there,” he whimpers and spreads his legs further.

Geno really puts his back into it then and Sid sobs into the mattress, his orgasm building with intensity every time Geno pushes into him. And then he comes with a shout, as his entire body shakes through it. He’s distantly aware of Geno twitching and coming with a low groan, before collapsing on Sid’s back.

They stay like that, panting, until Sid’s legs start to cramp in protest and they have to move apart. Geno strokes the skin on the inside of Sid’s thigh with tickling fingertips, and presses slow, sweet kisses to his neck. Sid closes his eyes, his chest feeling tight, and allows himself to linger there for another moment. And another.  And another.

It’s a slow day for the most part. They finish their plates with cake and then watch a show on Netflix that he really likes, but Sid can’t seem to get the hang of. He’s content with just dozing on Geno’s chest on the couch as he watches episode after episode, until it’s time for lunch.

They have sex again afterwards, over the kitchen table, and nap together afterwards. Sid is so content, his body humming and revelling in Geno’s every touch.

Geno goes out with his friends from work that evening and Sid watches his own tv shows with Fedor in the den. He gets regular text updates and a bunch of selfies that he saves to his phone.

It’s after midnight when Geno calls him, with the sound of whatever bar he’s at in the background.

“You want I come home?” he asks.

“You don’t have to come home for my sake,” Sid says. “It’s your birthday.”

“Maybe I want.” Geno’s voice drops low. “If you still up when I’m home.”

“I don’t know,” Sid says, fingers skirting the waistband of his underwear. Maybe having sex three times in a day is a stretch, but it’s the off season and he likes sex. “If you hurry, you can do whatever you want.”

It’s forty minutes later when Geno barges into their bedroom, out of breath and obviously hard in his pants. Sid didn’t expect that Geno doing whatever he wanted would end up being eating Sid out until he comes so hard he whites out, and then Geno coming all over his ass and back.

They eat leftover cake in bed afterwards, until Geno falls asleep sitting up with the plate on his lap, and Sid has to take the dishes down and then wake Geno enough to get him lying down under the covers. He drifts off spooned against Geno’s back, breathing in the scent of his skin.

*

“Have you ever been to Canada?” Sid asks on the flight. It’s the shortest summer in Cole Harbour he’s had since he started his career, or well, ever in his life. One week. Looking over at Geno where he’s inspecting the in flight entertainment system, it’s worth it.

“No.” Geno swipes through the selection of movies. “You from small town, yes?”

“Quite, yes.”

“I look forward to water.” Geno shrugs. “And see family again.”

“They’ll be happy to see you again too.”

“I hope, I’m on best behavior when I meet them last time.”

Laughing, Sid shakes his head and grabs his book. “Watch a movie and shut up, you asshole.”

Geno grins and reaches over, squeezing Sid’s thigh. “Maybe you tell me if you want join mile high club.”

And maybe Sid would if even the business class section wasn’t filled with people who clearly know who he is. If it was someone other than Geno, he might’ve been annoyed with him for saying something like that loud enough for other people to hear. But with Geno he has a difficult time getting angry to begin with, and especially when he sticks his tongue out between his teeth, clearly so proud with himself for pulling that joke.

“Asshole,” Sid says again, smiling back helplessly.

They have a rental car waiting for them at the airport, and Geno sleeps most of the ride to Sid’s house. His first one. He always thought he’d live here after retiring, but now when Geno is in his life, maybe it’ll have to stay a holiday home of sorts.

That evening, after picking up take out from his favorite fish restaurant, and basic groceries on the way home, well their Canadian home, he looks up to Geno hovering in the doorway to the kitchen. He’s holding a box in his hands, containing an assortment of items Sid has seen around their Pittsburgh house.

He was away a lot when Geno first moved in, so he never actually got to witness the process of the flowers, sachets and stones finding their way to the windows, nooks and various corners.

“Yes?” he says, when Geno keeps quiet, and stows the groceries in the fridge.

“In Pittsburgh I’m not ask,” Geno starts and bites his lip. “I do there because I want to keep safe. Can I do here?”

A shiver runs down Sid’s spine, like a slice of ice, making the hairs at the back of his neck stand up.

“Are we not safe here?” he asks.

“I think safer,” Geno says, which is not at all the answer Sid would’ve liked to hear. “This house is more you, and I’m not want to do without ask.”

“Geno.” Sid lets out a small sigh. “We’re married. This is your house too. If you think we need...well, whatever all of that is, then I trust you.”

After a moment of silence, Geno sets down the box on the kitchen counter. “Is usual things we have at home too. Some crystal, different kind for different purpose, herb and flower. People make everything so complicate when most powerful is going to basic, but use everything with purpose.”

“I thought they were stones,” Sid says and reaches out for a black crystal that reminds him of the one he found in his gear bag.

“Some stones good too.” Geno shrugs. “But these more pure, so is more help.”

It’s both terrifying and hilarious how he speaks about this as though it’s as normal as making lasagna.

“Can I watch?” Sid hears himself say. “When you...do whatever it is you do?”

Geno blinks at him. “You want?”

“It only seems fair. It’s...you. It’s who you are. You came to my games, showed an interest. I want to understand more too, unless that’s not allowed?”

At that, Geno frowns. “I don’t know. I mean, I don’t know if not allowed? I’m never be with anyone before who know about me and also want for me to tell what I do.”

“You don’t have to,” Sid hurries to say.

Geno hesitates, but then he nods. “I show you some, explain. Other things maybe we save for later, have to make research first.”

Upstairs, Geno places a sachet in their bed, just like the one they have at home. “Is lavender. Everyone know lavender, and lots of people have at home in closet for nice smell on clothes. We have in bed because is good for sleep, help with stress—you so stress in playoffs—and also long life. Some say is good for attraction, but is popular lies with new age people.”

“So you’re saying this isn’t the reason I want to have sex with you?” Sid asks, picking up the sachet from the bed.

“You tell me,” Geno says and presses the sachet to Sid’s nose in a very annoying fashion. “You turn on now?”

Sid meets his gaze and his stomach contracts in a way he now associates with being around Geno. “Yeah.”

It has nothing to do with the lavender, but when they come downstairs a while later, the food is cold and forgotten on the counter and Geno has to fix the rest of the house while Sid reheats their dinner. It was definitely worth it.

They spend most of their time down by the dock, fishing or relaxing. Sid’s family is over a lot and Taylor steals every chance she has with Geno. It’s great that they get along, but Sid doesn’t get to see her that often either, so shouldn’t she want to spend some time with him too?

“They’re planning your birthday,” his mom says when he’s turning around in his chair to look for them for the fifth time in perhaps as many minutes. “Pretend I never told you that.”

It’s easier that night, when Geno says he’s too tired to go into town and meet up with Sid’s friends, to go alone. Taylor is already hanging out on their couch, and Sid doesn’t need a college degree to understand that it’s not really about Geno’s energy levels.

It’s a good night with friends he’s known for so long, but hasn’t seen in a while. He’s full when he returns home and when he unlocks the front door, and notices that the lamp on the side table in the hallway has been left lit, he thinks his heart is going to explode for a second.

Geno is already asleep, turned towards Sid’s side of the bed. He has to resist the urge to cozy up next to him right away, and goes to take a quick shower instead. When he comes back, climbing into bed, Geno squints at him with one eye.

“Sorry,” Sid says, even though he knows by now that Geno always wakes briefly if Sid goes to bed last.

Geno reaches out for him, stroking his thigh and up his side. “Have fun?”

“It was great. I like coming home to you, though.”

“Mm,” Geno says, and presses a kiss to Sid’s forehead. “Glad you home.”

“Did you have a good night with Taylor?”

“Mm,” Geno says again, by the sounds of it half asleep again, and presses his nose into Sid’s hair. “Night baby.”

Something bursts in Sid’s chest.

He wakes to his family standing by the foot of the bed, singing _Happy Birthday_ for him. Geno is the loudest, but he doesn’t know all the words, and Sid can’t stop laughing even when they’re done.

“We have a day full of activities for you,” Taylor tells him where she sits cross-legged on the bed a little while later.

It’s not ideal for him to eat cake for breakfast, again, but all of his family is here, having coffee with him on his birthday morning. It hasn’t happened in years.

“I can’t believe you’re thirty,” his mom says, shaking her head. “You were a baby yesterday.”

Taylor mouths: _here we go_ , as Mom turns misty eyed and shows Geno the baby pictures she has of Sid on her phone. Geno is either a really good actor, or he finds Sid adorable as a baby too.

The day starts out peaceful, with a long breakfast and then gifts. Geno gives him a subscription of premium chocolate truffles every month that Sid definitely shouldn’t eat, but he _loves_ chocolate and his parents raised him to appreciate gifts.

He receives the cup after breakfast and lifting its weight makes the rush of the victory come back. _They really won._ Geno examines the cup, reading the engraved names and lifting it over his head.

“I think I’m be great winner,” he states after putting it down again. “I look good when I lift it.”

“That’s all it takes,” Sig agrees and laughs when Geno kisses him.

“Is why you win, they think you prettiest so they pick you.”

“Wow; gross and also adorable,” comes Taylor’s voice from the doorway. “I didn’t know that combination was possible.”

When Sid turns his head, not moving away from Geno, both his mom and Taylor are standing there, watching them. His mom is misty eyed, and he smiles at her with his chest expanding with every passing heartbeat.

He’s _happy_.

He spends some of his day at the Halifax Natal Day Festival and the parade. Geno is there with him, and people take pictures. The evening is spent on a steamboat with all of his nearby friends and close family. He suspected that he didn’t need to worry about them meeting Geno—his dad is the most skeptical person Sid knows and he spent the morning showing Geno how to tie a dry fly hackle—but he didn’t know Geno would be such a success.

It’s him turning thirty, but he’s more than happy sitting there, chatting with people and watching Geno play hide and seek with his cousin’s kids on the boat. His stomach feels funny, and his heart too light and too heavy at the same time, so he pushes his glass of beer away. Just then, Geno looks up and meets his gaze, pretending to look for two year old Colin, who’s hiding in the exact same spot he has all night. Sid smiles, his chest contracting almost painfully, and Geno smiles back.

He goes out on the deck to get some air, looking up at the stars above him. It’s a clear night, and they’re so bright, like a canopy of fairy lights against the dark sky. From inside, he can hear the laughter of the people he loves, and he’s filled to the brim with everything they are to him.

The door behind him creaks, and when he turns around, he finds Geno standing there with a hesitant look on his face.

“Can I come out?” he asks.

“Sure.” Sid steps a little to the side to make room for him, even though the railing has space for more than just the two of them.

“You okay?” Geno asks, rubbing Sid’s back before folding his arms over the railing too.

“I’m just getting some air, not escaping you guys, I promise.”

Geno looks at him then, and there’s a new expression on his face that Sid can’t put a word on. It’s soft and warm. Open.

“I have something,” Geno tells him. “I want to give in private, not with family. I think now is good time if you think is okay?”

“You already gave me a gift,” Sid protests.

“Is not my most important one.” Geno pulls out a folded piece of rough, grey fabric from his pocket and presses it into Sid’s open hand. “Careful so you don’t drop in water.”

Sid cups his hand as he unfolds the fabric. Inside is a flat, round pendant. The upside says EM and when he turns it over, there’s what looks like an engraved flower.

Clearing his throat, Geno turns it over again. “My grandma give for me when I’m born, EM is for my name—” and he shows Sid the side with the flower again. “—chamomile flower, Russia national flower. Also have important magic properties.”

“Geno…” Sid begins, because this isn’t something Geno should gift him.

“I want you to have,” Geno says, voice stern and his jaw set. “I want you to wear on necklace, if you want. Is something personal and important, and you my husband, so I want you to have.”

Swallowing, Sid reaches up and unclasps his necklace. “Help me put it on?”

It takes a couple of tries before they manage to slide it on the chain, and then get it back around his neck. Both their fingers tremble more than either of them like to admit. But then it’s there, hanging around his neck, and an odd sense of security radiates through his body.

“Thank you,” he whispers and then pulls Geno down for a kiss.

They have sex that night, and it’s different from the other times. It’s soft, face-to-face and lots of kissing, but more intense than their previous times. Geno cleans them up afterwards, and then cuddles close under the blankets.

“You have good birthday?” he asks, nuzzling the skin behind Sid’s ear.

“The best.”

“Your family is so nice.”

He can feel Geno breathe in against his throat. “Yeah? They like you a lot.”

“I like them also.”

Stroking Geno’s hair, he thinks about asking questions in return. About Geno’s family; where are they? Why doesn’t he want to talk about them? But before he can say anything, Geno presses a soft kiss to his collarbone.

“Is complicate story for me and my family.” He sighs. “I tell you sometime, but not today. Is your birthday and is suppose to be happy.”

Sid turns towards him, cupping Geno’s cheek and hopes that the smile he manages is gentle. “Okay, whenever you’re ready, I’ll be here to listen.”

“Okay,” Geno echoes and kisses him.

*

Overall, it’s a great but short summer. Before he’s ready, it’s time for camp and being stricter with his nutrition plan again. The collection of magnets on their fridge starts to slowly grow again, and he calls Geno every night when he’s on the road. The pre-season games count no less when it comes to missing someone.

When he comes back home after their last pre-season roadtrip, something is...off. He can’t pinpoint what it is and Geno is still at work, but something in the house makes the hairs on his arms stand up and Fedor to walk around on stiff legs, his hackles raised.

The security system was on, as it should be, when he got home. He picks Fedor up and makes rounds through the house with his phone ready if he needs to call 911. But nothing seems to be out of place. The safe is locked and everything is still there when he checks it. Even if he likes to wave it off as being paranoid, Fedor is definitely acting strange, clinging to Sid’s shoulder for over an hour until he finally calms down. The feeling wears off over time, and when Geno comes home, Sid is a hundred percent focused on making dinner and doesn’t remember his paranoia until Geno stops dead inside the door to the kitchen.

“What?” Sid asks, expecting a welcome home kiss and maybe something more, but Geno isn’t looking at him.

“You have visitor?” Geno asks and the edge to his voice makes chill run down Sid’s spine.

“No,” he says, and then swallows. “At least I don’t think so.”

“Don’t think so?” Geno echoes.

“Things were...weird when I got home. And Fedor was acting strange.”

“Strange how?”

Sid swallows, his pulse picking up. He wishes Geno wouldn’t react so strongly to this—what if there was something to his paranoia earlier?

“He was, I don’t know, he seemed cautious and his fur stood up. I had to carry him for a while after coming home, because he wouldn’t let me put him down.”

Geno pales visibly and Sid can feel panic begin to stir in his chest. “Where is Fedor?”

“I don’t know, last I saw him he was napping on our bed.”

Nodding, Geno disappears upstairs, still wearing his coat and shoes. Sid stares after him, left in the kitchen with fear thrumming behind his ribs. What the fuck is going on?

He takes a breath and returns to preparing the food, but he can’t shake the new feeling of being watched, and the chain of his necklace chafes against his neck.

The dinner is almost ready when Geno comes back downstairs again. He smells strange, and of something strong. He’s less on edge and his presence chases away the tension that still lingers in the room.

Geno walks up to him and drags his finger under Sid’s chain, before pressing a kiss to the nape of his neck. “Sorry.”

“What for?”

“For freak out.”

Nodding, Sid turns towards him. “Anything I need to know?”

Geno pulls a face. “Not yet I think. I have everything under control.”

The fact that he says that makes Sid worry more. What’s there to have _under control_? But he doesn’t ask questions. Geno will tell him when he needs to know.

They go to bed curled around each other, and Fedor lies at the foot of the bed, facing the door. Sid can’t shake the idea that he’s making sure no one, or nothing, comes in while they sleep.

Geno takes him to the zoo the next day and Sid forgets his worries in the fluffy baby animals.

The worry lingers at the back of his mind. He might’ve had an easier time letting go of it, if Geno wasn’t acting stranger by the day. He goes through the house at least once a day, checking on things, he says.

Sometimes he’s gone for hours after work and during those times, Fedor sticks to Sid like glue. Whenever Sid is on the road, Geno calls him to make sure he’s okay. Sometimes he’s distant, his mind clearly caught up in something else, and at other times he’s intense.

Sid’s heart threatens to burst every time he comes home to Geno, to kisses and sex and cuddling on the couch. But he misses the summer, when he didn’t have to fight the urge to look over his shoulder whenever he stops by the grocery store.

One evening in November, when Sid comes home after a particularly rough road trip, looking forward to a quiet evening on the couch, he finds Geno sleeping in an armchair with a pale face and dark circles under his eyes.

“Hey,” he says, making his voice gentle, and pushes the hair from Geno’s face, watching him blink awake. “Hey, are you okay?”

Geno stares at him for a moment, before he scrambles to his feet, swearing. “Fuck, I have work.”

“Calm down.” Grabbing the car keys from Geno’s hand, Sid pushes him back down in the arm chair. “Haven’t you slept in a week? You don’t look well.”

Geno shrugs and diverts his gaze. “I have things I need to do.”

“I think you should call in sick,” Sid says and cups Geno’s face. “Please? Stay home, let me take care of you a bit.”

At first, Geno looks like he’s going to refuse, with his jaw set and a stubborn glint in his eyes. But then his shoulders sag and he leans into Sid’s palm. “Okay.”

“Call your work and let them know, and I’ll prepare a bath for you. Be upstairs in ten minutes or I’ll come looking for you.” Hell, baths worked great when Sid felt like shit, so hopefully it will work for Geno too.

He goes into the guestroom that Taylor uses whenever she visits and finds a bottle of bath bubbles. _Calming & Rejuvenating_ it says on the label. That’ll have to do. He turns on the massage jets too, on a low level, and dims the lights. Geno comes steps into the bathroom just as Sid dries his hands on a towel.

“You do for me?” Geno asks, his voice and face filled with awe.

“I can’t do what you do,” Sid explains. “But this works for other people and I wanted to do something.”

Geno kisses him then, a little desperate. “Thank you. I love it.”

Helping Geno get in the bath, Sid puts a towel next to the tub, as well as the bathrobe he used himself when Geno cured his concussion.

“Do you want music or a book?”

Geno looks up at him with a frown. “You not come in too?”

“You want me to take a bath with you?” Sid asks, just to be sure. He can’t recall ever sharing a bath with anyone. Showers, yes, but never a bath. Truth be told, before Geno the only times he took a bath was either the ice ones at the arena, or to massage a sore body.

“Please?”

They have to let some of the water out, but a short while later, Sid has climbed in behind Geno in the tub and now has Geno’s head resting against his shoulder.

“I worry about you,” he says quietly, stroking Geno’s chest.

“I know.” Geno reaches up and cover’s Sid’s hand with his own. “I’m sorry.”

“We’ll figure it out.” At least he hopes that they will.

A little while later, Geno is asleep and Sid relaxes back against the tub. He’ll let Geno be until the water gets cold.

*

It’s a freezing December morning when Sid wakes up to an empty house and dead plants. He doesn’t notice at first, too focused on his pregame routine, but then the flowers on the window sill in the kitchen catch his attention. They’re wilted and dry like they haven’t been watered in weeks.

“I could’ve sworn...” Sid mutters under his breath and turns around. The fresh herbs in pots on the counter are dead too. Fear creeps up his spine and he goes into the dining room—all dead. So he goes to the next room, and the next, but everywhere he goes, every single flower has wilted and died. Over night.

“Fuck,” he breathes and has to sit down, head between his knees, to get rid of the black spots in his visual field. He tries calling Geno, but there’s no answer. He tries again, but this time it goes to voicemail. He has a fucking _game_ tonight and Geno is gone, and all their plants are dead. Something isn’t right.

He finds Fedor crouched under he couch in the living room, tense and trembling. Sid has to drag him out of there, holding Fedor to his chest as he grabs his car keys and his coat. Geno’s car is still in the driveway, but Sid just knows that he’s nowhere near home.

“You have to help me find Geno,” he says and puts Fedor in the passenger seat. “Something’s wrong.”

He drives for hours and misses the time for his pregame nap. It doesn’t matter. Just as he’s about to give up, Fedor meows loudly as they near an exit.

“Here?” Sid asks, and Fedor meows again.

It’s ridiculous, trusting a cat to lead the way to wherever Geno is, and for a long while Sid is convinced that he’s driving into nowhere. Until the road turns narrow and the asphalt turns to gravel. Oh.

“His old house?” he asks Fedor, who’s standing on his back legs with his front paws resting on the dashboard for a better view.

A moment later, the forest opens up to a small meadow. But where Geno’s cottage used to be there’s now nothing but a pile of smoking, blackened wood and stones. And there’s Geno, standing at the edge of it all with an empty look on his face. He’s in his sweats and t-shirt. Barefoot.

“Stay in the car,” Sid says to Fedor as he gets out. He walks closer to Geno, looking around to make sure no one else is there. Everything is so quiet and _wrong_. “G?”

Geno looks up then and the blank expression slowly fades into a mix of fear and relief.

“Are you okay?” Sid asks, taking Geno’s hands in his. They’re ice cold. “Fuck, sorry, of course you’re not okay. I meant, are you injured?”

Geno shakes his head. “I want go home.”

“I’ll get you home. Come on, baby.” Sid doesn’t normally go with pet names, but Geno is shivering and Sid has no fucking clue how he got here in the first place—there’s no car in sight.

Fedor climbs onto Geno’s lap as soon as he’s in the car, and Sid puts his coat over them both.

“Do I need to take you to the hospital?” he asks.

“No,” Geno says and shakes his head. “I’m not hurt. Promise.”

He slowly goes back to his normal self the further they get from the burnt-down cottage and closer to their home.

“Sorry I worry you,” Geno says quietly when Sid pulls into the garage. “I’m not know what happen.”

“We’ll talk about this later,” Sid says, sighing. “We’ll talk about this later and you’re going to tell me everything. I need to know what’s going on.”

Nodding, Geno holds Fedor to his chest. “I know. Sorry. I’m should have tell you right away.”

“Yeah,” Sid agrees. “You need to get warm and I have to get going. I’m sorry.”

Realization dawns on Geno’s face. “You have game. I forgot.”

“You had other things to worry about.” Sid scrubs a hand over his face. If he had a normal job, he’d have called in sick, but he can’t explain this to the organization in any way they’d understand. “Will you come to the game? It’s okay if you don’t feel up for it.”

“I be there,” Geno promises, kissing him briefly. His lips are like ice. “We talk after. I explain everything.”

“Okay,” Sid sighs. “Okay, we’ll talk later.”

The very second Sid steps onto the ice that night, he knows: Geno isn’t here. He doesn’t play well, and it’s a miracle that they win. No thanks to him, that’s for sure. He’s only half-present for the interviews and is grateful for his experience with media. He’s heard all of these questions before, and he knows how to answer them.

“You coming out with us, Sid?” Horny asks and slaps his shoulder.

“Can’t sorry. Geno’s sick,” he lies and ducks out before anyone can ask more questions. He sends Gonch a text before pulling out of the parking lot.

**< Something’s wrong with Geno. I found him at his old house this morning. It was burnt to the ground. All our plants are dead. Help.**

It’s very possible that Gonch knows just as little as Sid does, but he speaks Russian and maybe Geno has an easier time explaining whatever’s going on in his native language.

The closer he gets to home, the heavier his necklace grows around his neck and the more a voice at the back of his mind screams at him turn around. But Geno is at home. If something has happened to him…

Sid mutes his phone and parks the car on the street outside. His skin crawls and every fiber of his being wants to get as far away from here as possible. He can’t leave without making sure Geno is safe.

The front door is ajar and Sid leaves his shoes outside. The house smells foul, hurting his nose and lungs as he breathes, but he forgets about that when he hears voices. They come from the living room. He recognizes Geno’s easily, but there’s another he’s never heard before; high, cheerful in the most terrifying way Sid can imagine.

He stops just shy of the doorway, partially hidden in the shadows there. There, in the living room, is Geno. He’s standing barefoot on the floor, his posture rigid and his head held high. Fedor is crouching behind him, yowling in an awful, haunting way that Sid’s never heard before. In front of Geno in an armchair, with his back towards Sid, mostly obscured by the tall backrest, sits a man. He’s holding a glass in his hand and he’s laughing.

The hairs on the back of Sid’s neck stand up and he has fist his hands to keep his body from shaking.

“Zhenya,” the man tuts. “Did you really think you can poison _me_?”

“Was worth a try,” Geno spits.

“Now, don’t be angry.” The man points at Geno with his index finger, holding the glass up. “You knew the terms of our deal when we made it. Being angry at me for holding you accountable to that deal now is fruitless. Stupid, frankly.”

“It was never fair deal.” Geno steps to the side, further from the doorway. At first, Sid doesn’t get why—it’s the only door to the room and Geno needs to get out of there. But then he gets it. Geno knows he’s here, but he doesn’t want the man in the armchair to see Sid. “You say my family die if I’m not agree to your deal, Bettman. It’s not real choice and you know it.”

Sid’s heart is beating so hard someone else has to hear it, but the man—Bettman?—doesn’t seem to realize someone else is in the house with them.

“Zhenya,” he tuts again and Sid wants to punch his face in. “I’m not asking for much. I don’t know why you’re all worked up over this.”

Geno’s eyes grow dark and the lights in the house flicker. “I marry. I’m never fuck someone else so you can have my child.”

“It was the _deal_ ,” Bettman says and his tone is clipped, clearly annoyed now. “You get to keep your family, and in return you have to breed with someone else with a powerful lineage. It’s not a lot I’m asking here.”

“No.” Geno shakes his head.

Much to Sid’s surprise, Bettman downs the contents of his glass in one go. “You know you can’t kill me. Our deal keeps you from doing anything to break it. Killing me won’t be possible.”

“Only way to stay out of deal is if I make more powerful promise to someone else,” Geno says and he’s calmer now. What the hell is wrong with him? He needs to _run_.

“And you thought marrying a famous hockey player would _ever_ fool me to believe it’s real, honest, _pure_ love?” Bettman puts the glass down and coughs.

“I love him,” Geno says and Sid is sure that his chest is going to crack open any minute now. “I’m not at first, but I do now.”

Bettman coughs again and then laughs. “That’s sweet, Zhenya, but it means nothing if it doesn’t go both ways.”

“I can’t answer for him,” Geno says and for the first time, his gaze flickers to Sid.

There’s a moment of silence and then Bettman says: “ _Oh._ ”

Sid fishes out his necklace from underneath his shirt and squeezes the pendant in his hand, before he steps out of the shadows and into the living room. It’s colder here, like the windows have been left open overnight and he has to force his legs to walk the few feet to stand next to Geno.

Bettman is a short, round-faced man with a receding hairline, a large nose and a disgusting smile. Whatever Sid imagined, this isn’t it.

“Mr. Crosby,” he says. Sid doesn’t bother with replying. “I didn’t notice you.”

His gaze falls to Sid’s necklace and Bettman narrows his eyes at Geno.

“I see. Zhenya gave you a little something to keep you hidden from me. That’s why I haven’t been able to find you as of late.”

“I give to him because he’s everything to me.” Geno brushes his hand against Sid, hesitant, as though he’s not sure Sid will take it.

“How sweet,” Bettman says and rolls his eyes. “Mr. Crosby, I’m not sure you know who you’re married to.”

“I think I do,” Sid says and grasps Geno’s hand, squeezing a faint tremble from his fingers.

“You think you do?” Bettman echoes and then coughs, frowning. Then, his eyes grow wide, panicked, and he coughs again. “Tell me one thing, Mr. Crosby. Do you love him?”

Sid hasn’t given it much thought, hasn’t bothered to put words on what he feels for Geno. It’s obvious now. The way he sleeps better when he’s home, sharing breathing space with Geno. The way he’s filled to the brim and somehow still craving more when they’re close together. How he can’t stay angry for long. How Geno’s kisses make even the most gruesome loss fade into nothing. It’s in the way his fingers touch Geno by themselves, these days. In the way he can no longer imagine a life without him.

“Mr. Crosby?” Bettman repeats.

“Of course I do,” Sid says and he can hear Geno’s sharp intake of breath next to him.

Everything after that happens so fast. Bettman coughs again, clutching his throat with his hands, and the front door slams. A second later Gonch is in the living room, and Geno is pushing Sid out of the room.

“Go upstairs,” he says. “I be there soon.”

Sid does as he’s told, sitting on the edge of the bed, in his game day suit and socked feet, staring at the closed bedroom door. He can hear their voices downstairs, Geno’s and Gonch’s. It’s not difficult to put two-and-two together. Somehow, Sid loving Geno caused the poison Bettman drank to kill him.

It seems like hours before there’s a faint knock on the door and Geno pushes it open. He looks lighter than he has in months, but worry is etching lines on his face.

“Can I come in?” he asks.

“Of course.” Why wouldn’t he?

“Can I sit here?” Geno asks then, pointing at the spot next to Sid on the bed.

“I’m not scared of you,” Sid whispers.

Geno sinks down on the bed and takes Sid’s hand. “I’m sorry you have to see this.”

“Can you tell me who he is? Was.”

There’s a long silence, where Geno strokes the back of Sid’s hand with his thumb, and then he says: “I think you remember Gonch say how a witch get powers?”

Sid shudders. “A deal with the devil?”

“Yes.” Geno clears his throat. “He’s not devil, but he’s evil. Many hundred years old. Years ago, I meet him on accident. My family are all sick except for me, and doctors tell me they going to die. I meet Bettman and he say he can give me power to cure family, if I do something in return for him. He tell me, I have ten years to give him child, or he has right to find someone I have child with. I’m so scared for family and I think ten years is long time. It’s easy decision too, you know? I have family and I’m not want for lose them, and I’m not have child he can take. But then he tell me I can’t talk or meet family until I give him child.”

Geno hasn’t been in contact with his family for ten years? Sid’s heart aches.

“I still agree to deal,” Geno says. “My family is everything and they can have good life without me. If I don’t do this, they die. So I’m agree and I cure them.”

“And you moved to the U.S.?”

Geno nods. “I find old family friend, Seryozha, and explain everything. He know my family is ill, so he believe me. I stay with him for long time and we think I’m safe. I’m too far away for Bettman to find. But one day we come home to Bettman talking to Seryozha’s girls in kitchen, and we know I need for move out.”

“So you got the cottage?”

“Yes.” Geno takes a breath. “I live there for long time. When it’s just me, I can protect better. But I know Bettman know where I am now, so when Seryozha hear about your concussion, he also know ten years is almost up.”

“But you didn’t want to agree at first,” Sid points out.

“I’m not want for bring you into this.” Geno sighs and squeezes Sid’s hand, maybe as an apology. “I know just marry you won’t count as stronger promise than deal with Bettman, but Seryozha say that maybe he leave me alone when he learn I’m marry someone. That he won’t call bluff.”

“But he did.” Sid is woozy suddenly and he has to breathe in deeply. “Is he dead?”

“Yes,” Geno says. “He kill himself. He know is poison, but he drink anyway. He disappear, turn into dust, like he never exist at all.”

“He didn’t think I love you.” Sid looks up at Geno. “You weren’t sure either.”

Shrugging, Geno looks down at their hands. “I’m not marry you for manipulate you to love me. I hope you know I say truth. I’m just desperate and hope Bettman won’t call bluff, and that he assume it’s real love because we get married.”

Of course Sid believes him. Geno never asked him for anything.

“I’m not think I start to love you either,” Geno confesses. “I think we marry, be friends and it’s fine. But then we start have sex and I worry I can’t keep feelings out of this. I fall fast after that. I’m not want to say, because it’s not fair.”

“I didn’t realize completely,” Sid says. “I never really bothered to put words on my feelings for you, but tonight it just seemed so goddamn obvious when he asked me. I don’t even know when it happened, I just know that it did.”

“Love, and promise of love, like marriage, is the only thing stronger than life deal,” Geno explains. “Is why poison work.”

“If you didn’t know that I love you, why did you give him that to begin with?”

Geno’s smile is rueful. “I hope. What if I’m not try and I go with him, and I find out later you do love me and I betray you? I hope, and today it work.”

There’s a knock on the doorjamb and when Sid looks up, Gonch is standing in the doorway. “Is everything okay?”

The question is directed to Sid. He nods. Today has been fucked up enough to last a lifetime, but he’s okay. They’re okay.

“It’s okay if you need some space from him,” Gonch says. “You can stay with my family for a few days.”

“No,” Sid hurries. The last thing he wants is to be away from Geno. “I want to be here.”

“If you change your mind, just call.”

“Thank you.”

Gonch turns to Geno then. “I figure you should call your family. They’ll be happy to hear from you personally, instead of my reports.”

Sid’s fingers ache when Geno squeezes them tight. He listens as they speak in Russian. He can’t understand a word, but they’re definitely talking about Geno’s family. After Gonch disappears, Sid gets ready for bed while Geno sits on the bed with his phone in his hand, staring at it. He’s still there, when Sid comes back out.

“I think I call tomorrow,” Geno whispers.

“Take as long as you need,” Sid says, kissing his cheek. “If you want, maybe you can ask them to come visit us for Christmas.”

They lie tangled in bed for a long time, just sharing breathing space, and existing. Sid can’t fall asleep, and Geno only dozes occasionally. It’s almost morning when Sid finally drifts off, and when he wakes again it’s several hours later.

He looks at Geno, who’s snoring softly next to him. He looks years younger than yesterday and Sid’s heart aches with love for him. Pressing a kiss to Geno’s forehead, he looks around. At the foot of the bed, Fedor is sleeping stretches out on his back. Everything is peaceful, calm, like it hasn’t been in months.

On the window sill, the flowers are in full bloom.

 

**THE END**

 


End file.
